The Responsibility Of Thought
Part 3
from "The Hidden Side of Things"
Chapter XIX: By What We Think The Realm Of Thought
by CW Leadbeater
A straightforward, honest piece of business means gain for both parties. A tradesman, let us suppose, buys his goods wholesale, and then, taking care to say of them only what is strictly true, disposes of them by retail at a reasonable profit. Here all parties gain, for the wholesale merchant and the tradesman make their living, while the purchasers are willing to pay the retail price in order to have the convenience of buying in small quantities. Each person gains what he wishes; no one loses; all are satisfied.
Ascension by Allison L. Williams Hill
This is merely a superficial example from the physical world; it is in the higher realms of thought that we may see most clearly how beautifully this rule works. Suppose that a man gains knowledge. He may impart his gain to a hundred others, yet he himself will have lost nothing. Not only so, but even others, to whom he does not impart it, will gain indirectly from his possession of it. Because he has this added knowledge, he is by so much a wiser and more useful man; his words should be the more weighty, his actions the more sagacious, and so others around him should be the better for his learning.
The Hermes' Temple by Allison L. Williams Hill
We may go deeper still. Since the man knows more, not only his words and action but his thoughts will be wiser than before. His thought-forms will be better, the waves flowing from his mental body higher and richer; and these must inevitably produce their result upon the mental bodies of others around him. Like all other waves in nature they tend to reproduce themselves, to provoke a similar rate of undulation in anything with which they come into contact. The same natural law, by the action of which in the physical world you are able to boil the water for your tea or to toast your bread at the fire, makes it absolutely certain that the good effects of additional wisdom will influence others, even though the possessor speaks never a word.
That is why in all religions so much importance is attached to the company of the good, the wise, the pure. Human qualities are infectious, and it is of the greatest moment that we should be careful to which of them we subject ourselves.
Take another instance. Suppose that you gain the valuable power of self-control. Perhaps you were formerly a passionate man, and now you have learnt to check that outpouring of force, and to hold it in subjection. Let us see how that affects others about you. In the physical world it is unquestionably pleasanter for them, but them, but let us consider the effect on their finer vehicles.
Mom's Mother's Day by Allison L. Williams Hill
When in earlier days you allowed yourself to get into a rage, great waves of strong wrath poured out from you in all directions. No one who has seen the illustration of such an outrush as that which appears in Man Visible and Invisible , will need to be told what disastrous effects such waves must have produced upon the astral bodies of those who were so unfortunate as to be near you. Perhaps one of those men was himself struggling the same evil habit. If so, the emanations of your fury stirred up similar activity in his astral body, and so you strengthened that evil, you made your brother' s task harder, and his burden heavier to bear than it otherwise would have been. And once more I must insist that you have no right to do that.
But now that you have gained self-control, all this is most happily changed. Still you radiate vibrations, for that is Nature' s law, but now they are no longer the lurid flashes of anger, but the calm, measured sweep of the strong waves of love and peace. And these also impinge upon the astral body of your fellow man, and tend to reproduce themselves in him; and if he is fighting a battle against passion, their stately rhythm helps him and steadies him. Your force is being exerted on his side instead of against him, and so you lighten his burden, you aid him on his upward path. Is it not true then that in your gain he has gained also?
Men are so inextricably linked together, humanity is so truly a unity amidst all its marvellous diversity, that no one can advance or recede without helping or hindering the progress of others. Wherefore it behoves us to take heed that we are among the helpers and not among the hinderers, and that no living being, whether man or animal, shall ever be the worse for any thought or word or deed of ours.
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