In the Bible this movement of individualised Spirit is called "prayer," and it is synonymous with Thought, formulated with the intention of producing this response.
"Prayer is the heart's sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed,"
and we must not let ourselves be misled by the association of particular forms with particular words, but should follow the sound advice of Oliver Wendell Holmes, and submit such words to a process of depolarisation, which brings out their real meaning. Whether we call our act "prayer" or "thought-concentration," we mean the same thing; it is the claim of the man to move the Infinite by the action of his own mind.
It may be objected, however, that this definition omits an important element of prayer, the question, namely, whether God will hear it. But this is the very element that Jesus most rigorously excludes from his description of the mental act. Prayer, according to the popular notion, is a most uncertain matter. Whether we shall be heard or not depends entirely upon another will, regarding whose action we are completely ignorant, and therefore, according to this notion, the very essence of prayer consists of utter uncertainty. Jesus' conception of prayer was the very opposite. He bids us believe that we have already in fact received what we ask for, and makes this the condition of receiving; in other words, he makes the essential factor in the mental action to consist in Absolute Certainty as to the corresponding response in the Infinite, which is exactly the condition that the New Thought lays down for the successful operation of Thought-power.
It may, however, be objected that if men have thus an indiscriminate power of projecting their thought to the accomplishment of anything they desire, they can do so for evil as easily as for good. But Jesus fully recognised this possibility, and worked the only destructive miracle recorded of him for the express purpose of emphasising the danger. The reason given by the compilers of the Gospel for the destruction of the fig-tree is clearly inadequate, for we certainly cannot suppose Jesus so unreasonable as to curse a tree for not bearing fruit out of season. But the record itself shows a very different purpose. Jesus answered the disciples' astonished questioning by telling them that it was in their own power, not only to do what was done to the fig-tree, but to produce effects upon a far grander scale; and he concludes the conversation by laying down the duty of a heart-searching forgiveness as a necessary preliminary to prayer. Why was this precept so particularly impressed in this particular connection? Obviously because the demonstration he had just given of the valency of thought-power in the hands of instructed persons laid bare the fact that this power can be used destructively as well as beneficially, and that, therefore, a thorough heart-searching for the eradication of any lurking ill-feeling became an imperative preliminary to its safe use; otherwise there was danger of noxious thought-currents being set in motion to the injury of others. The miracle of the fig-tree was an object-lesson to exhibit the need for the careful handling of that limitless power which Jesus assured his disciples existed as fully in them as in himself. I do not here attempt to go into this subject in detail, but enough has, I think, been shown to convince us that Jesus made exactly the same claim for the power of Thought as that made by the New Thought movement at the present day. It is a great claim, and it is, therefore, encouraging to find such an authority committed to the same assertion.
The general principle on which this claim is based by the exponents of the New Thought is the identity of Spirit in the individual with spirit in the universal, and we shall find that this, also, is the basis of Jesus' teaching on the subject. He says that "the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do these things doeth the Son in like manner." It must now be sufficiently clear that "the Son" is a generic appellation, not restricted to a particular individual, but applicable to all; and this statement explains the manner of "the Son's" working in relation to "the Father." The point this sentence particularly emphasises is that it is what he sees the Father doing that the Son does also. His doing corresponds to his seeing. If the seeing expands, the doing expands along with it. But we are all sufficiently familiar with this principle in other matters. What differentiates an Edison or a Marconi from the apprentice who knows only how to fit up an electric bell by rule of thumb? It is their capacity for seeing the universal principles of electricity and bringing them into particular application. The great painter is the one who sees the universal principles of form and colour where the smaller man sees only a particular combination; and so with the great surgeon, the great chemist, the great lawyer—in every line it is the power of insight that distinguishes the great man from the little one; it is the capacity for making wide generalisations and perceiving far-reaching laws that raises the exceptional mind above the ordinary level. The greater working always results from the greater seeing into the abstract principles from which any art or science is generated; and this same law carried up to the universal principles of Life is the law by which "the Son's" working is proportioned to his seeing the method of "the Father's" work. Thus the source of "the Son's" power lies in the contemplation of "the Father," the endeavour, that is, to realise the true nature of Being, whether in the abstract or in its generic forms of manifestation.[3] This is Bacon's maxim, "Work as God works"; and similarly the New Thought consists before all things in the realisation of the laws of Being.
And the result of the seeing is that "the Son" does the same things as "the Father" "in like manner." The Son's action is the reproduction of the universal principles in application to specific instances. The principles remain unaltered and work always in the same manner, and the office of "the Son" is to determine the particular field of their operation with regard to the specific object which he has in view; and therefore, so far as that object is concerned, the action of "the Son" becomes the action of "the Father" also.
Again, there is no concealment on the part of "the Father." He has no secrets, for "the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth." There is perfect reciprocity between Spirit in the Universal and in Individualisation, resulting from the identity of Being; and "the Son's" recognition of Love as the active principle of this Unity gives him an intuitive insight into all those inner workings of the Universal Life which we call the arcana of Nature. Love has a divine gift of insight which cannot be attained by intellect alone, and the old saying, "Love will find out the way," has greater depths of meaning than appear on the surface. Thus there is not only a seeing, but also a showing; and the three terms—"looking, seeing, showing"—combine to form a power of "working" to which it is impossible to assign any limit.
Here, again, the teaching of Jesus is in exact correspondence with that of the New Thought, which tells us that limitations exist only where we ourselves put them, and that to view ourselves as beings of limitless knowledge, power, and love is to become such in outward manifestation of visible fact. Any objection, therefore, to the New Thought teaching regarding the possibilities latent in Man apply with equal force to the teachings of Jesus. His teaching clearly was that the perfect individuality of Man is a Dual-Unity, the polarisation of the Infinite in the Manifest; and it requires only the recognition of this truth for the manifested element in this binary system to demonstrate its identity with the corresponding element which is not externally visible. He said that He and his Father were One, that those who had seen him had seen the Father, that the words which he spoke were the Father's, and that it was the Father who did the works. Nothing could be more explicit. Absolute unity of the manifested individuality with the Originating Infinite Spirit is asserted or implied in every utterance attributed to Jesus, whether spoken of himself or of others. He recognises only one radical difference, the difference between those who know this truth and those who do not know it. The distinction between the disciple and the master is one only of degree, which will be effaced by the expansive power of growth; "the disciple, when he is perfected, shall be as his Master."
All that hinders the individual from exercising the full power of the Infinite for any purpose whatever is his lack of faith, his inability to realise to the full the stupendous truth that he himself is the very power which he seeks. This was the teaching of Jesus as it is that of the New Thought; and this truth of the Divine Sonship of Man once taken as the great foundation, a magnificent edifice of possibilities which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man to conceive," grows up logically upon it—a glorious heritage which each one may legitimately claim in right of his common humanity.