The Pathway of Roses/Give Your Best to the World

by Christian D. Larson

CHAPTER VI

GIVE YOUR BEST TO THE WORLD

We have looked far and wide for remedies, but in our search we have overlooked one of the greatest of all; and that is love. Not the love of the person; not mere sentiment or emotion, but that strong, spiritual feeling that makes every atom in your being thrill with the purest sympathy and the highest kindness; and that makes you feel that every creature in existence deserves your most tender care and attention.

When everything goes wrong with us, we blame fate, environment or the world; we forget that the world does to us what we have done to the world. When we blame the world for everything, the world will so act that it will be to blame; but when we love the entire world with the whole heart, the world will change toward us accordingly and be kind.

When you do not succeed, when no one seems to care for your service, or for your talents, there are two things to do; do your best and love much. Do not condemn the race because it is slow to appreciate your worth; when you do this you push the world further away from yourself, and its appreciation will decrease instead of increase. Love the world, the whole world, and love with all the power of heart and soul; this will bring the world nearer to you; you will enter into friendly relationship with the world; the race will thereby discover what you have to give and will come at once to receive your talent.

True achievement in any sphere of action depends upon real ability, and a strong, deep, whole-souled love. Real ability can be cultivated, and we can all learn to love much; therefore the future of any person may become far greater and more beautiful than the present.

When others speak wrongly against you, do not permit the slightest trace of ill-feeling; anger and indignation not only weaken your own system, but also cause you to attract disagreeable people and adverse conditions. Love those who have mistreated you; love them with the very deepest power of your soul and they will soon come to you to make everything right again. Love can change the worst hatred into the deepest love; and what is more, when you love everybody you attract only the best people and the best conditions.

Love much, and lovely souls will daily come into your life; and those people who are not as lovely as they might be, will become better because they have met you and felt the divine fires aflame in your soul.

When people are going wrong, just love them; not with the person, nor in a weak, sentimental sense, but with that strong, soul-love that comes from the very heart of the Infinite. Such love will lift anybody; and whoever is lifted up into the better becomes better. When we ascend in the scale of life we enter the truer and the higher; we enter the right and thereby become true and right.

When you have reason to think that others are trying to take advantage of you, have no fear. Do not condemn; do not think of the wrong they are planning to do; take God with you and love them; love as you never loved before, and the wrong they are holding against you will change and become a great power for your good instead. Love can change any condition or circumstance and every change that comes through love is a change for the better.

Love brings us into right relations with all persons and all things; love removes inharmony, perverted feelings, obstacles, barriers and all kinds of unnatural conditions, and produces that perfect oneness through which the beautiful life can come forth. He who has placed himself in oneness with man can easily find his unity with God; but no one can find God who does not love man. When we love the whole race with the whole heart, then we shall enter the presence of Him who is love.

It is the truth that "He is nearest to God who is nearest to man;" and the nearer we are to God, the more life and power we receive from above; in consequence, the more we can accomplish in the world, and the better off will the world be because we came here to live for a while.

To be at peace with everything is one of the greatest secrets to greatness, usefulness and high spiritual attainment; and he alone can find the peace that passeth understanding who loves everybody and loves much. But true spiritual love does not love because it expects to gain thereby; when we love in the spirit of gain our love is only material emotion, and does not come from the spiritual depths of the soul.

Pure soul love loves because it is love, and must love. It loves because it is its very life to love, and could not cease loving without ceasing to be. And it cannot cease to be because the love that is love is eternal love. Therefore to awaken the love of the soul is to place in action one of the highest powers in the universe; a power that can do so much because it is so much.

To feel the interior presence of this love, with its high, strong, invincible power, perfectly blended with the sweetest tenderness, not only produces a joy that can not be measured but also lifts you into a universe that is fairer by far than we ever imagined heaven to be. And truly it is heaven we enter when we love with such a love, when we love as God loves.

Pure love sees no evil, no sin, no wrong; it does not live in the world of illusion or darkness; it is a child of the light and radiates its spiritual glory wherever it may be. Where love is, there will the light be also; and neither darkness, sickness nor sin can exist in the light.

There is nothing that will not be blessed by the presence of love; and the soul that loves with the spirit, that loves much and loves always, will meet the good alone. He has given his best to the world, and the world will open its heart to him and be kind. As the years pass by, the world will lavish upon him the richest treasures within its power to give, and nothing will be too good to place at his door. Blessings of all kinds from every direction will come in greater and greater abundance, and his life will be full with the best that God and man can give; because he has given his best to the world, and loved much.

The practical mind may think that this is only sentiment, and therefore has no value, neither for the physical life nor for the spiritual life. But too often the practical mind looks for his treasure in the realm of effect instead of in the realm of cause; in consequence, he finds but little of real value anywhere in life. The great things in life do not come through minds that dwell merely on the surface, that cannot rise above the world of tangible results. Everything that is beautiful and of real worth, whether it appeals to the eye, the ear, the intellect or the soul, has come through the mind that had visions, the mind that could soar to supreme heights, and behold the real splendor and glory of the world.

To be practical is well and necessary; but there is something else that comes first. This something else brings forth the substance, the material upon which practical efforts may be applied; therefore, the practical mind cannot act until the dreamer has had his vision.

The higher nature of man must act before the external mind can find anything of value to do; the soul must live and think before the person can attain and achieve, and the greater the love, the greater the life and the thought of the soul.

Whatever has added to the welfare of man in any age has been the product of the mind with the vision. All the good things of life have come from the world of visions and dreams. Someone entered the finer realms of life for a moment and brought back a treasure. The practical mind turned it to use, and the world was richer and better than it was before.

This being true, it is the very height of wisdom to train ourselves to enter consciously and frequently into those finer realms and thus bring forth more of its hidden treasures. It is the best we all seek, and since the best comes from the ideal world, the better we understand the ideal, the richer and greater life will become. To be practical in the largest sense of that term is to so live that we can touch the sublime on the one hand and turn every ideal into a living reality on the other.

The great mind is the dreamer, the prophet, the soul with visions; the mind that can soar to empyrean heights and reveal to the race some higher truth, some better way, and thereby elevate the whole of mankind. This is the mind that brings real values to the world, that makes life worth while; and one of his principal secrets is love.

When we love in this supreme, spiritual sense, we give a power to our practical efforts that we never gave before. We give life to our work; we do more and better work; results double and more; we do this through a power that many ignore as mere useless sentiment; and we thus demonstrate that love, the deep, strong, soul love, is as practical as any tangible force in the world.

There is nothing to lose but failure, and everything to gain, when we learn to love in this strong, high, universal sense. To begin, love as much as you can; be directly interested in the highest welfare of everybody; feel in the depths of the soul that we are all working together for the greatest good to all the race; and make this feeling so strong that it thrills every fibre in your being.

But do not love for effect; love because you feel love; and train yourself to feel love by loving with all the power of love, and in the highest, purest sense you know. He who tries to ascend will go up; he who tries to become strong will enter power; and he who tries to love everybody with the deepest, highest, strongest love of the soul will daily enter more and more deeply into the very spirit of that love that is love. And when you are awakened in the world of true spiritual love, real love takes possession of all your feelings and desires; and all your love will eternally love because it is love. From that moment you will constantly receive love from all the world and constantly give love to all the world. You will gain possession of one of the highest and one of the greatest powers in the universe, and the Infinite will always be with you. God is with every soul that loves much; because it is love, the deep, pure, spiritual love that gives man the power to know that My Father and I are One.

When there is anything you truly wish for, do not stand passively hoping that something may happen to make your wish come true; go out and make that wish come true; have the faith that you can; believe in the power that God has given you and God will give you more. Know that all the good in the universe lies in the path of him who has faith, and who will use the power of faith to make his own faith come true. He who only hopes, will see visions of good things, but will never reach them. But he who transforms his hope into faith and his faith into living works, will reach every lofty goal he has in view. To him nothing shall be impossible, for God is with him.