“Yes, we see only our thoughts. And we think we see them as objects all about us, as trees, and houses, and people. But in the final analysis we see only thoughts,” he finished.
“But these thoughts do not come from God,” she insisted.
“No,” he replied slowly, “because they often manifest discord and error. I think I grasp what is struggling in your mind chiquita. God is––”
“Everywhere,” she interrupted.
“He is everywhere, and therefore He is the soul––the inside––the heart and core––of everything. He is mind, and His thoughts are real, and are the only real thoughts there are. He is truth. The opposite of truth is a lie. But, in reality, truth cannot have an opposite. Therefore, a lie is a supposition. And so the thought that we seem to see externalized all about us, and that we call physical objects, is supposition only. And, a supposition being unreal, the whole physical universe, including material man, is unreal––is a supposition, a supposition of mixed good and evil, for it manifests both. It is the lie about God. And, since a lie has no real existence, this human concept of a universe and mankind composed of matter is utterly unreal, an image of thought, an illusion, existing in false thought only––a belief––a supposition pure and simple!”
As he talked he grew more and more animated. He seemed to forget the presence of the child, and appeared to be addressing only his own insistent questionings.
They walked along together in silence for some moments. Then the girl again took up the conversation.
“Padre,” she said, “you know, you taught me to prove my problems in arithmetic and algebra. Well, I have proved something about thinking, too. If I think a thing, and just keep thinking it, pretty soon I see it––in some way––outside of me.”
A light seemed to flash through Josè’s mental chambers, and he recalled the words of the explorer in Cartagena. Yes, that was exactly what he had said––“every thought that comes into the mind tends to become externalized, either upon the body as a physical condition, or in the environment, or as an event, good or bad.” It was a law, dimly perceived, but nevertheless sufficiently understood in its workings to indicate a tremendous field as yet all but unknown. The explorer had called it the law of the externalization of thought. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,” said the Master, twenty centuries before. Did he recognize the law?