n this lesson Bernard offers ideas on healthy eyes and hair, offers “More Ideas on Living in the Country”, and then helps those who are feeling down with “Dissapointed in Your Progress?”. He touches in different kinds of “seeing”; how you see physically, the lifestyle you want to see, and how you see your progress.
Blessings,
William
P.S. Bernard was not a licensed medical practitioner, herbalist, or the like, so please treat his ideas as entertaining suggestions to discuss with a suitable professional (see disclaimer at bottom of page).
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LESSON 16: Seeing
My dear Student,
You, as Students of the Thought Bricks Course, will have read my brief “life-story” contained in the Introductory Booklet. You will know already that I was born nearly blind and wore thick glasses all the time for thirty seven years. Now my eyes have improved so much that, with those same glasses I cannot read print without setting it well beyond arm’s length first.
The fact is, glasses, if worn continually, weaken the eyes because they are always at the same focus. It is like using field-glasses with a fixed focus. They would be all right for, say, a distant view, but things in the middle distance would not be clear, whereas things just across the road would be quite blurred. The natural eye constantly changes its focus by means of ingenious muscles, but with glasses, this is prevented and the eye-muscles, having no work to do, become weaker than ever.
Now, if you have a weak muscle in any other part of your body, you do not tie up the limb and never use it again! You gently exercise the limb and coax the erring muscle into action. That is what should be done with the eyes. Glasses should be left off as much as possible and the eye muscles coaxed to work. If you have a job which demands keen eyesight you will not be able to leave off your glasses altogether; but begin to leave them off while at home. You will feel very weak and “blinky” at first. Never mind-blink! Above all, don’t feel worried or tense or anxious about it. Don’t let people persuade you that you will strain your eyes if you leave your glasses off. Think of all the millions of people with weak eyes who had to exist before glasses were invented. And the significant thing is that, with the invention of spectacles, eyesight has deteriorated among the population generally.
No-one would expect to wear a splint for ever, and glasses are like “splints” to the eyes, after all. They help you along, but you don’t want to be dependent on them always. So enjoy the feeling of freedom you get by leaving off your glasses. Enjoy the “clean” feeling of the air on your eyes. And after a few weeks you will be enjoying your more youthful appearance too! As soon as the weak, blinky look has gone – as it will – you will look years younger. Try to read a little, covering first one eye with an eye-patch, and then the other. Then rest both eyes by covering them lightly with the palms of your hands to keep out the light. One of my eyes is much weaker than the other. At first I found that this weaker eye made the printed page look very dark, while waves of pulsing shadows seemed to pass over it. I soon discovered that the weaker eye could not absorb so much light as the stronger one, so, whenever I was out in the sunshine, I covered the stronger eye and kept taking rapid blinks in the sun. This improved my vision very much.
While you are listening to a radio play or feature, is a good time to practise covering the eyes. The time passes swiftly and you will feel rested and relaxed afterwards.
Every day, when you wash, fill an eye-bath with cold water and bend your head over it, opening and shutting the eye in it. Give each eye a few minutes “treatment”. Add Eyebright lotion if possible. It is difficult to say in one short Lesson, all that should be said about sight-recovery, so if you would like to know more on this subject, I suggest you get a very helpful book called: “Better Sight Without Glasses “, by Harry Benjamin. {Seems to be out of print now, but you can get a used one via amazon, or try http://www.abebooks.com and http://www.abebooks.co.uk – William M.}
When you begin to venture out without your glasses, don’t give way to fears. First choose a road you know well where there are no crossings to negotiate. Don’t strain and peer. Just relax and blink the eyes often to rest them. If you see people approaching, don’t look at their faces until you are near enough to recognise them if you know them.
More Ideas on Living in the Country
During these Lessons, side by side with our consideration on Health, we have talked about living in the country. This seems a good time to “recap”, (as they say) and look at the various ways there are of achieving that much-loved dream! First of all, there is the way of buying a cottage with a garden and living mostly on what one can grow or pick wild. Cottages in really isolated districts are not nearly so hard to get, or so dear, as many people think. Usually, they need something done to their roofs – for sagging roofs are a very frequent sight in the country; and there they stand, shunned by the local people and unknown by the very townsfolk who would be willing to spend a little money on renovating them. It seems so sad that with every passing year their condition grows worse.
Secondly, there is the possibility of putting a caravan or living-hut on a piece of farm-land and paying a small rent for the ground. Provided it is well off the road and well away from towns, a council permit can be obtained quite easily, usually one that is renewed and reconsidered every three years. It is possible, too, to buy very small “odd corners” of ground beside field pieces that are too small or too oddly shaped to admit of a plough.
If this is not too far away from the farm, water can easily be obtained, and of course, sanitation can be the very useful chemical closet in an adjoining hut. To anyone who wishes to explore this idea, I give this advice. Do spend your leisure hours or weekends or holidays in actually going into some remote country places and seeing the possibilities for yourself. When we were looking for a cottage, or for a site for the caravan we bought later, we put all our trust in writing and advertising and reading advertisements. It was not until we had bought a cottage and were actually living in an isolated country district that we saw the cottages that stood vacant and in want of repair; that we met farmers who said they would have been only too pleased to have rented or sold us a piece of ground for our caravan; that we talked with local people on the Council who said that permission would have been granted provided certain conditions were accepted.
So why not begin to enjoy your leisure in a truly constructive way by exploring the lesser known country districts? In our next Lesson we will discuss some other ways of realising “The Dream “.
Student Experiences Rapid Hair Regrowth
Now to turn to the second subject of our Lesson – that of the Hair. There have been some truly wonderful results in the Student Family in this direction. Students began to use my methods of visualisation and thought building, and then one of them gradually evolved his own version which he used with great success. Here are extracts from three letters from him, telling me all about it.
Letter No. 1. “Now I have an amazing thing to tell you, my dear friend. For several years I have had a bald patch on my head and recently it has enlarged. I’ve spent pounds on one thing or another, to remedy this, but no good! So I applied your teachings, Bernard, by reasoning that since Divine Power ensouls me it wasn’t His desire that anyone should lose their hair. Hey presto! In three days the bald patch has rapidly vanished – to be replaced by fast-growing hair. You know, I feel like a man shivering before a heap of shavings and he suddenly remembers he’s holding a box of matches in his hand.”
Letter No. 2. (Ten days later.) “You’ll be pleased to hear that my hair is now as thick and wavy as when I was eighteen. I just can’t take it all in yet, it is phenomenal. Also, my brow is quite smooth, whereas it was getting to sport a permanent scowl.”
Letter No. 3. “So glad that you put my ‘hair miracle’ in Bernard’s Weekly News’, and if you like I will describe just how I went about it. I stand in front of the mirror and visualise the Mighty Abundance prevalent in Nature. The same Power ensouls me; therefore how can my hair be thin or sparse? I decree abundance in this hair now. I massage the whole head vigorously till my scalp tingles; I do this for ten minutes. Then comb and brush but all the time I picture a brilliant light bathing the whole of my head. Well, simple, isn’t it? There’s only one very important thing as you well know, and that is Belief. Without this anyone wastes his time and will certainly remain as bald as ever. After all, a little flower doesn’t do anything; simply yields to the mighty Life Spirit.”
Another of the Family sent this news: “I am joining the band of ‘Hair-miracle’ workers. After the very first treatment my daughter suddenly said: ‘Mummy, your hair does look lovely-all shiny and wavy’.” This last Student wrote in the same letter: “I ought to put ‘B.B.B.’ after my name – ‘Busy Brick Builder’!” She then went on to tell me of three other splendid results she had had – all concerning the painting and furnishing of her home-adding: “I kept picturing the results in my mind“. So now you know what to do.
Here is an extra tip about hair that will interest you. To stimulate the hair, keeping it in splendid condition, use a “friction” comb. It massages the scalp every time it is used.
Dissapointed in Your Progress?
Now here is a special encouragement for those who feel they are not making as much progress as others do. It is inspired by the remarks of a Student.
That Student’s letter, you see, was about his slow progress. “I am really making headway”, he wrote, “but my progress cannot compare with some of the other achievements of the Student Family”. Some of you do write to me like that. You sound regretful. You say: “I hope you are not too disappointed in me?” Sometimes I astonish you by replying: “Disappointed? I should think not. I’m proud of you!”
Why should this be? Well, it’s like this. I have before my eyes, a mental picture of what the Student was like at the beginning of the Lessons. If a man or woman starts off by being fearless and confident, it is not very surprising, is it (though it is very pleasing) if he or she grows still more fearless and confident? But if a man or woman starts off by being timid, with a feeling of inferiority, then it is truly a great achievement if that one changes to fearlessness and confidence. Such a Student has travelled much further than the first. No wonder I am delighted!
Again, if a Student enrolling for the Course is happy and selfless, I am not surprised to find that he or she has great thought-building power. But if a new Student is depressed and self-absorbed, yet changes right round to a joyful, balanced selflessness, then he has actually made tremendous strides, even though he has to practise for a further period of time before he develops thought-building power. It is, you will see, not a case of: “What is the finished product like?” But, “What is it like now, in comparison with what it was at the beginning?”
This is the only true gauge of progress, so take heart, if you don’t think you are making as much progress as some. If you are genuinely different from what you were at the beginning, then you have a right to be both pleased and proud of your efforts
Your friend,
Bernard
Lord, give me one new thing to do for Thee
In each new day, in each new hour that dawns;
That in this service I may speak for Thee,
That I may bring Thy joy to one that mourns,
Or lift some heart in wordless praise to Thine;
Then shall Thy joy be truly, truly mine!
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‘My Father in Heaven’, said Jesus, one day;
And that was a prayer by itself, in a way;
For when we breathe: ‘Father’,
What more can Love say?