LESSON NUMBER 24 QUESTIONS FROM STUDENTS

The few questions that filter in from the many students are proof that so many of you are finding that “All questions are answerable in the Light”. Further proof that substantiates this is to be found in quotations from glorious letters from students who write in effect: “There was a question I planned sending in but I did as you suggest and meditated upon it within myself. The next day I discovered I KNEW the answer and now it is as clear as crystal”. Over and over again we read in your letters HOW questions were answered from WITHIN, and we are made happy–very happy–for we know that this means our beloved students are unfolding in the Light of all-knowing.

We find, however, that when questions DO come the majority have a frustration keynote in them which in their essence means “How can I be a success in life–be prosperous–have many friends–be happy?

Frustration plays a big part in the making of unhappy lives.

Such questions relating to personal selves so far exceed questions concerning desire for greater knowledge of universal things that we are taking a few which are typical of all of them, and devoting this entire question section to giving a constructive answer which is intended to encourage and inspire those who despair ever reaching their desired goals.

Many of these questions relate to my own life, such as “How do you get in to see the big men of the world, like Presidents of the U.S. and of big industries without effort, while I have to pull all the strings I know of and only get in to see the underlings?” and “How do you get so many portrait commissions from great people so easily while I have to go to great effort to get unimportant ones at low prices?”

Because of these many personal questions which infer that I must have some magic way of getting important commissions, or am lucky perhaps, I shall be personal in answering them and state the principles which have given me an abundance of everything for which I sought, and in the measure of my desire for them.

You will find, in my attempt to give you the principles upon which I founded my life’s desires, the one most conspicuous fact that I never sought, or desired, anything whatsoever for myself, neither possessions, nor money, nor friends, nor power, nor even the important sculptural or portrait commissions which have been so generously bestowed upon me. Every great happening in my life has come to me unsought by me. God sent them. The surest way to prevent you from getting anything for yourself is to seek it for yourself. That which should be yours will surely come to you.

If you analyse my answer to these questions you will find that all of my success in life has been based upon putting the love principle into daily practice by applying it to every act of life. Wherever I have practiced it and knowingly worked with God’s law of love, God always gave it to me in the measure of my desire, and abundantly, but when I ever violated that law, unthinkingly, or because of being pressed by seeming necessities, that which I sought did not come to me.

Herein follows the few typical questions, based upon frustrations.

QUESTION. “How can I climb to the top in our factory from the lowly position I now occupy. And how can I overcome my inferiority complex which keeps me there?

QUESTION. “How can I apply the laws you teach to my personal life to make friends and keep them; to cultivate charm of manner; to attract love and make people want to know me?”

QUESTION. “I am terribly lonely. I do not seem to know how to make friends. Can you tell me what to do?”

QUESTION. “You say that God will give whatever we desire. I believe that in principle but no matter how much I desire things, pray for them and try to live right to be worthy of them, it does not work out for me. What is wrong?”

QUESTION. “You say that what is mine will come to me. It does not seem to. I am a salesman. I work harder and many more hours than other salesmen and barely fill my quota while others work much less and double their quotas. My wife has to work to help out while the wives of others selling the same things have servants and good clothes. Could you explain your success by giving some personal examples which apply to your principles?”

ANSWER. The great deterrent to happiness, peace and prosperity which every man is seeking is the still remaining influence of the jungle which is man’s inheritance and is foremost in his memory.

The keynote of man’s primate existence was SELF-PRESERVATION. The method he made use of to insure self-preservation was to take anything he wanted from other men for himself. The whole keynote of man’s past ages has been SELF–the individual SELF. His whole desire was for SELF alone, and still is.

The whole keynote of Cosmic Man of future ages is THE UNIVERSAL SELF, which means a full realization of the brotherhood of man–AS ONE–and of unity with God–AS ONE. Man must now learn that he must lose his own Self in order to find the Universal Self.

The basis of Cosmic Man’s desire is to GIVE of himself for the Universal Self. In him the individual SELF is lost in the desire to give service for the whole of mankind to the exclusion of Self,–to utter forgetfulness of Self.

In the above you find my answer, in principle, to all of the questions asked regarding personal success. Now let us take this principle apart and analyze it. Let us show how it works by example and analogy. Let me thus show you how it worked for me, for my whole policy of life has been based upon selfless service for the universal Self as a whole and it has worked for me just as it works for all others in the measure in which they place service to all men before service to Self.

ANALYSIS OF PRINCIPLE

If I could put the above into a few words which might be called a life policy–or life pattern–such as a business man forms as his business policy, the following would depict that policy. But you must bear in mind that a policy is something which is decided upon for strategic reasons, whereas this life pattern of procedure was my Nature. It was not just planned.

1. I loved the world which I am, and desired to serve it with love by giving more than was expected of me.

2. I desired to be worthy of serving the world.

3. I desired to excel in all things.

4. I set no limitations upon myself. I KNEW that I could do whatever I desired to do. As my desires were boundless, so were my powers to manifest them limitless.

5. I sought no reward, asked no favors, or intercessions in my interest from any man.

6. I worked knowingly with God and knew that I need not ask for reward, or favors or advice or intercessions from any man so long as I gave of myself to all men.

To demonstrate how this principle actually worked I will briefly tabulate some of the major happenings of my life to show how true it is that “what is mine shall come to me”, to quote a familiar saying.

As a prelude to this statement it is well to explain that when I say that God sent to me the great happenings of my life–as He does to you, I mean that God is LAW–so when you or I become LAW by obeying it, that actually means that God sends us that which we have desired. In the sense that I and my Father are ONE I myself sent them to myself as you likewise do.

Conversely, if I do not become LAW I violate it. God then withholds my desire until I do obey it by becoming the law. In the same sense that I and my Father are not ONE–when I am not LAW–I myself have withheld my desire from myself.

Early in life I excelled in music. I gave all of myself to it so joyously that the neighborhood marvelled and CAME TO ME. Men from the car barns across the street sat at my door yard when I thus gave love out of myself to the world, and they gave me of their love, and quickened me.

All of the love I ever expressed in music brought love to me. I never sought it. Excellence in that art brought me a church organ and piano position for Sundays and Fridays. Love thus regiven to me sent me to an art school and lifted me from the status of errand boy, which could have been drudgery had I not glorified it by deeply loving it as one stepping-stone toward my heaven.

In the art school love given out by me in God’s rhythms was regiven when Paderewski accidentally heard me play and CAME TO ME. I worshiped him from afar at orchestra rehearsals where students were admitted, but did not seek him. It never even occurred to me to seek him.

One glory after another CAME TO ME as love regiven for love given. That is LAW. No one has to seek fulfillment of God’s law. No one has to seek reward for manifesting God’s Law. No one need ever ask help or intercession of others, in manifesting the law of love. Love given is always regiven.

Everyone knows that story of my bellboy career, told by Glenn Clark in his marvellous little biography of my life, the story of my desire to be the best bellboy ever known, the only bellboy who never accepted a tip and joyfully gave much more service than was expected.

No more wonderful example of fulfillment of the law of love regiven to me was ever mine to know for my manifestation of love given by me. Many of the powerful whom I humbly served became lifelong friends. Three families desired to adopt me. Rules regarding servants were set aside so that I might be a guest of hotel guests. Bellboys who had accepted tips earned about one hundred dollars in gratuities. I earned eight hundred dollars by selling sketches. Many years later the family of an ex-Governor of Massachusetts commissioned me to paint several portraits. When I had brought ice water to their door many years before I also brought love–and they remembered it–and CAME TO ME to regive it.

As a young illustrator I was asked to illustrate a story called “Ten Little Pigs”. After completing my drawings I was not satisfied with them. They did not excel. I spent a week in the country studying pigs and did them all over again. More love went into them. I worked with God’s hands in mine instead of mine alone. They excelled.

The love I gave them was reflected in Mark Twain who regave it to me. Work done worthily brought Mark Twain into my life. He consulted with me regarding illustrating “The Jumping Frog of Callaveras County.”

Work done worthily, and with love, by you or any other man on earth, no matter how lowly he is, will make the greatest men of earth want to know you. You need not seek them, nor ask others to intercede for you, or to give you letters of introduction to them.

If you want to know great men make them want to know you.

Emerson knew this when he said: “If you build a better mousetrap than your neighbor the world will make a beaten path to your door.”

That is as true of the shoe manufacturer as it is of the sculptor, composer or painter. Love put into any product regives love from happy purchasers. Work worthily done is service given to all the world, and all the world regives it in like measure.

The world beats a path to the door of every man who excels in the giving of loving service to his neighbor. Excellence, worthiness, selflessness and joyfulness given out by you echoes in the hearts of all men. The world will find a way to your door if you attract it to you by working with the law.

Beauty attracts. Ugliness repels. Immunize yourself from all that is ugly. See beauty in all things, AND WHAT IS YOURS WILL COME TO YOU.

George Washington Carver exemplified this principle. He asked nothing, sought nothing from any man. He lived only to give–to serve–to enrich mankind with his excellence. No one could have been more lowly, more obscure, yet the world beat a path to his door and laid garlands of love at his feet.

Excellence and love expressed by superceding mediocrity in the drawings of those ten little pigs has followed me all the days of my life. I attribute some of life’s highest honors given me to the love I gave to that simple task. We will trace its effect over the years.

Mark Twain’s friendship extended to his family and hosts of friends. Excellence in literature gave me a membership in The Author’s Club. I spent delightful hours there with Mark Twain, and visiting literateurs of note, such as Yeats, Sir Conan Doyle, Kipling, Rabindranath Tagore, Sir Oliver Lodge and hosts of others.

I was commissioned to do a bust of Mark Twain because of excellence given to other work. I did not seek it. Excellence given in love to that work showered me with untold regivings of love expressed by Albert Bigelow Paine, Irvin Cobb, Irving Bacheller, John Masefield, George Bernard Shaw and many others whom I did not seek, but who came to me in fulfillment of the law.

Then followed a request that I create the Mark Twain Memorial. I did not seek that honor. It came to me because of service given by me. To that commission I gave of all I had to give to the world, working knowingly with God for many years. And the world gave it back to me a hundredfold in expressions of love from the many hearts which echoed the rhythms of beauty that monument symbolized.

To list the names of the world’s illumined ones who enriched me with words from their very Souls would take up many pages, for their names are legion and the places they occupy in the hearts of men are the highest in all the arts, in education, in governments, and industry. Included among them were the Presidents of seventeen leading universities.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, said to me: “Seven sculptors have failed to make the masterpiece of me which I hope to see. I believe that a man who could create such a spiritual portrait of Mark Twain as you have, would be the one who could make a masterpiece of me. Will you do it?”

This exemplifies the workings of the law. Every sculptor in the land had used every influence he could bring about to receive such a commission. Senators and others in high places had been asked to intercede for them, but I never even thought of asking that of anybody, KNOWING, as I knew, that WHAT IS MINE WILL COME TO ME. But it can be mine only through having given its equivalent to the world.

That brings to my mind another similar example in which another President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, sent for me, saying “Your portraits of children are the most beautiful I have ever seen. Will you paint my children and Mrs. Roosevelt?”

This commission opened the door to other opportunities for self-expression which have not yet reached their climax. It also gave me three years of association with one of the greatest spiritual men in American history.

But even this honor arose from another one which preceded it and proves that every action of giving never ceases to repeat its effect, accumulatively, forever.

During the years that I gave to child portraiture my desire to excel in everything I ever gave out from myself, drew the attention of thousands of lovers of beauty to my work. Newspapers devoted whole pages of pictures to them, and every portrait of a child I painted drew requests for so many more that I had to limit them to guard against any lowering of standard.

Excellence, and the recognition of love extended to my creations, brought to me one of the most glorious experiences of my life. A very famous editor, Edward Bok, of The Ladies Home Journal–who later built that beautiful Bok Tower in Florida–published a page of my drawings of children and commissioned me to select the twelve most beautiful children in America.

This work excited intense national interest all over the country and enriched me by thousands of new friends whom I met all over the country. My offers of commissions at that time would have taken several lifetimes to complete. It was this work, however, which prompted the then President of the United States to honor me. Again I say that the giving of love is as certain to be regiven as that day will dawn from the night.

It would take many pages to enumerate the many demonstrations of the inevitability of the workings of God’s law of love wherever I put it into action accompanied by my intense desire to excel in everything I did.

Especially I want to accentuate the endlessness of every good action of life where excellence, love and desire to serve the world, with forgetfulness of self, are manifested.

For example, my musical beginnings were never ended. Music brought me the friendship of the greatest musicians of our day, such men as Ysaye, Antonio Scotti, Caruso, Sousa, Godowski, Gabrilowitsch, Victor Herbert, Joseph Lhevine, Giovanni Martinelli, George Gershwin, Tita Ruffo, Buzzi Peccia, and hundreds of other immortals, five of whom I have been commissioned to model in bronze and stone for posterity.

My work in both art and science brought to me the Presidency of The Society of Arts and Sciences which I held for seven years, together with the friendships of the greatest names in all the arts and sciences of our day, together with the most important sculptural commission I ever received, because it was my first work in sculpture, that of Thomas A. Edison.

Among the many whose Souls touched mine during this epochal period were such names as Michaelson, Millikan, Shapley, John Dewey, Lee de Forest, Jeans, Pupin and many others in science–Nazimova, Isadora Duncan, Richard and Eva LeGallienne, Elbert Hubbard, Eva Gautier, Grace Moore, Lily Pons, Alma Gluck, Adolph Ochs, Clarence Whitehead, Howard Chandler Christy, George Gray Barnard, Frederick Macmonnies, Robert Bartlett, Augustus St. Gaudens, Daniel French, and many other children of the stars whose Light has illumined the world.

For excellence and love given to painting The Might of Ages nine European countries regave to me their appreciation in high honors and a visit to my studio of King Albert of Belgium. I cite this latter as a conspicuous example of how the building of a better mousetrap brings the world to your door without your solicitation. Thousands of important people made great efforts to meet King Albert. I made no effort at all. I had merely given something to the world which echoed in his heart and made him want to see me.

Excellence in self-expression and love given to it will enrich anyone’s life. Even in sports my two outdoor sports of horsemanship and skating carried this principle into effect. In skating I won many honors and medals, including being nominated international judge for the Duke of Connaught figure skating trophy held in Ottawa, which brought with it the honor of being the guest of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire at Government House, and of leading the Grand March with the Duchess at the final carnival on ice in the Palace grounds.

In horsemanship I trained Arabian stallions and sold them for as high as $15,000. It is the love which you put into out-of-door sports which vitalizes you, not the exercise, for without love the exercise reaches only the clay of you. Exercise with love reaches your very Soul and vitalizes you with the power which joyousness and ecstasy alone will give.

CONCLUSION

There are many who say to me: “But I am not extraordinarily gifted with genius for anything. I cannot do great things.”

Then do little things in a great way, until you can do great things in a great way–little things–even the building of a better mousetrap. Little things such as putting love into your cooking, into your conversation, into your very attitude as you walk through life–and into your every dealing with your neighbor.

I say again to you that if you put love into anything you say or do love will come back to you in the measure of your giving. Witness, for example, what the ground regives to you for the love you give to it.

There are those who say to me also: “I am lonely. I need the love of a wife–or of a husband–and it does not come to me.”

The love you await is searching for you as you likewise are searching for it. Keep on giving love and your love will come to you, as you are likewise nearing it every moment.

Believe this until you KNOW it. In your meditation desire it and vision your companion in all things coming to you, and you, yourself, walking out to the horizon of your vision to meet that one.

If you are manifesting God by serving mankind you cannot do it fully alone. Destiny mates everything. Pairs of opposites divide the undivided. Destiny is always fulfilled if you and your loved one work together with the law which fulfills it.

God’s plan calls for fulfillment of all manifestations of the law. You must, however, manifest the law before its fulfillment to perfection, and the law says that you are never to seek anything for yourself as self alone, but for your Universal Self.

When you have learned how to lose self-desire to find universality in giving fully of your Self to God for the fulfillment of His purpose then your desire will come to you.

I know whereof I speak–and Lao also–for we both visioned each other on our horizon and mutual need gave us to each other after we had both fully learned that lesson of selflessness of desire for each other as individual selves.

Both Lao and I had fully dedicated ourselves to the service of man. Destiny has made our purposes as one, and destiny made our path to our horizon as one. We had both fulfilled the law which gave us to each other for the purpose of continuing to fulfill the law.

Our destiny is one so it had to be fulfilled upon one path. Perfection in companionship–whether matrimonial, social or otherwise, can be found only by having but one goal, one objective, and ONE PATH for a unified companionship to tread.

Too many there are in matrimony, in social and business companionship who have separate goals and separate paths leading to them. If two lives are not destined for, and dedicated to the same purpose, it is better that they do not unite, for their paths can never become one.

In your meditations, therefore, desire companionship from Soul and Soul will respond to Soul–always–just as harmonics in octaves will always resound in each other while discords will not.

That is the way of your love. It is awaiting you as you are awaiting it. But are you desiring it?

What I mean by that is–are you desiring love to supplement your giving to the world or are you desiring love for yourself in a body to be companions in body? Are you ready for the love you desire, and are you worthy of it?

If you tune a thousand violins alike and sound one note on one of them, all of them will resound to the same note, but if one of them is not similarly attuned that one will remain unechoed and alone.

If you are lonely give thought to what I have just written. If you love the world love will come to you from the world in the measure of your giving to it.

If you attune yourself to the Light of God’s love, and give it out from you, it will resound throughout the universe–and its echoings will come back to you. Conversely, all the love given out by all the world will resound in you–and you will know its ecstasy.

When you have unfolded to that point of knowing the kingdom of heaven in you, all else will be added to it. That is what I mean by telling you the story of how all things I desired have come to me only after I had learned that I already had all of my desires within me by giving them out from me.

After Lao had learned that fully–and I had learned it fully–we both went expectantly–and knowingly–to our horizon and found each other waiting there. What was ours had come to us for we had become ready for it. We had become worthy of it.

Excellence proved itself. Selflessness proved itself. Worthiness proved itself. Just as my own had always come to me unsought, in the measure of my giving, so, likewise, the greatest of all life’s treasured gifts of love came to Lao and me to follow the one path to the Light–and thus illumine the way for all who desire the Light but cannot find the way to it.

Swannanoa, Waynesboro, Virginia

Beloved friends:

Your sharing of your unfolding comprehension of the Light of all-knowing through your study of these lessons has been our greatest joy these past six months. You are now midway in your twelve months study of the underlying principles of God’s great universe.

Knowing from your letters how great has been your Self unfoldings, I know you will never again view passing events in the old way–through your senses–but will more and more take them within and view them with new comprehension based upon Knowing.

As you are now recognizing the simplicity of all things, and are passing your inner knowing on to others, we know you realize how difficult it is to tell the story of Creation simply. An editor once said that the simplest story in the world is the hardest to tell.

Doctor has a thousand times said that God’s plan is the simplest story in the world for whatever phase of Creation you talk about you say the same thing in every respect. He so often says that there is nothing beyond The Divine Trinity, and that can be fully told in three minutes.

That is why, just after his illumination, he thought he could gather the scientists of the world together and tell them the basic principles of Creation in three minutes.

If you analyse these twenty-four lessons given so far you will see that we have not stepped outside of that principle in any respect. We have told the same story many times, varying only the words to fit different phases of the same thing. Lights flash from the many facets of a diamond, the lights being all one, likewise the facets of the diamond being one.

Therein lies the immense difficulty of telling this supreme story simply, for behind the scientific principle of The Divine Trinity is the love principle which is the hardest thing in all man’s unfolding to teach to him.

Twenty centuries ago The Sermon on the Mount told that story fully, but twenty centuries have passed and the story of love has only begun to seep into the Consciousness of but a small percentage of mankind.

Love has not yet become even a small force in the guidance of human relations, much less the mighty force which it must become before humans will have learned to live together in any semblance of peace. All over the world men are hurting each other in divers ways, and are thus hurting themselves as a consequence. Love is still far from man.

God is love and the universe is founded upon love. The only spiritual power man has to use in his human relations is love, expressed by equal giving and regiving. And the only physical power he has to use is the manifestation of love as expressed by equal interchange of motion between the opposed pressures of gravitation and radiation, whether in the electric current or any other manner of interchange between the two opposites which divide the equilibrium of God’s Light into the two moving lights of matter in motion.

The happiness, prosperity, peace and power that all mankind desires is summed up in the one word LOVE but neither of these can come to man until he knows how to express love by giving it and regiving it equally. That is the tragedy of man. It is his own self-made tragedy. Unbalance, based upon ignorance of the meaning of love is man’s needless tragedy.

Rhythmic balanced interchange between all pairs of opposite conditions in this divided universe is the key to the attainment of man’s greatest desires and highest aims–BUT HE HAS NOT YET LEARNED HOW TO USE IT. It is your responsibility to teach him how to use it–yours and ours.

Aeons pass with love ever awaiting, but only a very few have arisen above the agony of awaiting and have been transformed through new knowing.

That is why this simple story is so hard to tell–for the practices of man’s aeons pull so hard toward the clay of him and the desires of his body that the very noise of its vibrant motion drowns out the ecstasy of the Inner Silent Voice which ever awaits the hearing of inner ears.

That is why Doctor has often almost despaired of ever being able to tell it–to ever put into words that for which there are no words.

It is with great rejoicing that we can now put it into words, for The Message long needed the love and knowing which was fulfilled by our working together to give to the world as one person–treading but one path–one deeply illumined path to the Light.

Man in the mass knows practically nothing about man. He has but begun to rise above his sensing to think and to know. His has been a physical universe. He has hardly touched the edge of his vast powers.

His senses advance him physically like a strong stimulant. They give him many comforts and new sensations for the hours of his release from drudgery by his many new inventions. Instead of using his released hours for cultural advancement he uses them for more sensations,–for more new sensations.

In past days of less leisure, children studied music and other arts. Fairy tales and romance fascinated them. They idolized Tennyson. Parents read good books, attended concerts and the opera and held cultural gatherings. Children now want noise, and still more noise as they shift radio and television dials to find more stimulation for their senses and parents do the same things in a more grownup manner by adding drugs to produce new sensations.

We are not creating great men as we have done when culture was on the ascendant. The world has no use for new Tennysons, or Beethovens, Schuberts, Mozarts or Angelos, or the great painters, sculptors and writers of fifty years ago when the great decadence began which preferred to hear Beethoven syncopated and God’s beauty of form distorted.

Let us not be disheartened, however, for the purest of lillies arises from the blackest of mire.

Out of decay of all things comes rebirth of better things. Desire for love, peace, happiness and prosperity is in every human heart but the edge of the jungle must still be cut away to free man from its dark.

All down through the ages the whole of mankind has been uplifted just a little at a time by a very few who brought just one Message to their fellow man–the Message of Love. And each time that Message came into the world it was lifted up just a little–a very little at a time, but man in the mass has still not yet unfolded into the Light sufficiently to reverse his practice of taking and substitute GIVING, or replace sensing with KNOWING.

We recognize this great Cosmic Love in our daily letters from you–for never a day passes that we do not read such words as the following:

“We bask in this regiving, and now joyous experiences meet us at every turn. We walk on air, knowing that we are known by what we are. This whole activity has blossomed from the insistent demands on the part of others and we find it a real joy to help others to gain the same understanding they see in us.”

We see in all of you the help that God promised would come to deliver The Message, for we know that by just being, you are giving forth the Light of Love, and those seeing this new Light in your eyes will pause to wonder and enquire, for all men “want their own to come to them”.

Love is the answer to all things–not what men have called love in past ages for that was for the senses only–but love of God which is the ecstasy of Soul bringing Balance to all relationships, be they marital, social or business, and having love we know that “our own has already come”.

Next month you shall go farther into the principles of cosmic knowing–every lesson a step nearer your final goal of all-knowing.

Do know that our love is with you, step by step. Go forward with courage, knowing that in all the world there is only ONE–The Universal ONE.

My love always,

Lao Russell