Now one of the great errors all along in the past has been that we have mistaken the mere body, the mere house in which we live while in this form of life for a period,—­that which comes from the earth and which, in a greater or less time, returns to the earth,—­this we have mistaken for the real self.  Either we have lost sight of or we have failed to recognize the true identity.  The result is that we are at life from the wrong side, from the side of the external, while all true life is from within out.

We have taken our lives out of a conscious harmony with the higher laws of our being, with the result that we are going against the great current of the Divine Order of things.  Is it any wonder, then, that we find the strugglings, the inharmonies, the sufferings, the fears, the forebodings, the fallings by the wayside, the “strange, inscrutable dispensations of Providence” that we behold on every side?  The moment we bring our lives into harmony with the higher laws of our being, and, as a result, into harmony with the current of the Divine Order of things, we shall find that all these will have taken wings; for the cause will have been removed.  And as we look down the long vista of such a life, we shall find that each thing fits into all others with a wonderful, a sublime, a perfect, a divine harmony.

This, it will seem to some,—­and to many, no doubt,—­is claiming a great deal.  No more, however, than the Master Teacher warranted us in claiming when he said, and repeated it so often, Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these other things shall be added unto you; and he left us not in the dark as to exactly what he meant by the kingdom of heaven, for again he said:  Say not, Lo here, nor lo there.  Know ye not that the kingdom of heaven is within you? Within you. The interior spiritual kingdom, the kingdom of the higher self, which is the kingdom of God; the kingdom of harmony,—­harmony with the higher laws of your being.

The Master said what he said not for the sake merely of using a phrase of rhetoric, nor even to hear himself talk; for this he never did.  But that great incarnation of spiritual insight and power knew of the great spiritual laws and forces under which we live, and also that supreme fact of the universe, that man is a spiritual being, born to have dominion, and that, by recognizing the true self and by bringing it into complete and perfect harmony with the higher spiritual laws and forces under which he lives, he can touch these laws and forces so that they will respond at every call and bring him whatsoever he wills,—­one of the most stupendous scientific facts of the universe.  When he has found and entered into the kingdom, then applies to him the truth of the great precept, Take ye no thought for the morrow; for the things of the morrow will take care of themselves.