Welcome to the Thought Bricks Intro Course!
This a short course on its own right, yet it also acts as a preparatory course for the Thought Bricks Foundation Course (which is the main course undergone by all Thought Bricks students). Origiinally the lessons were sent out weekly in the form of a small booklet, with additional support material.
You likely have come across similar ideas to some of the material presented here. This would not be unusual these days since what was once regarded as esoteric teaching is much more widely available. Yet, bear in mind that even if ideas seem somewhat familiar that does not mean that we have fully understood them, or really made them part of our lives. The purpose of Thought Bricks is to help you get from ‘head’ knowledge to ‘heart’ knowing, a real living experience of abundance – and to also have living experience of yourself as an expression of God, the source of abundance.
There is no point undertaking the course unless you practise the exercises given. It is in practise that the material becomes part of you and not just something you ‘know’, or think that you know. Much of the material is about developing ‘heart’ knowing and therefore may look rather ‘basic’ to our well-stocked, and rather busy, modern minds. Following the course leads to a deep connection with the creative power within.
The exercises are often simple and straightforward. Yet it is in this simplicity that their power lies. Students of Thought Bricks material often find themselves returning to it even after years of experience with other teachings. This is because Bernard (who was Bernard), the writer of the material, expresses insights into the human spirit that genuinely speak to the eternal within us and help us awaken and embody that spirit – in a way that a solely intellectual understanding can never do.
Blessings,
William M.
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Lesson A: Thought Bricks and How To Build With Them
This seems a good time to talk to you about God. Many people turn away quickly from this subject. Who can blame them? The word “God” has been chosen to represent the All-Life, the creator or originator, but through the ages and throughout the world the word has often been linked with superstition, repression, vengeance and many other horrible things. It has also been linked with the idea of mankind as a fearful, worm-like creature.
The truth is, logically understood and reasoned, that to talk about God is to talk about you. Not that you are God. – but you are a part of God. When we talk of a sun-ray we talk about the sun, for the ray is sprung off from the sun and shares in its attribute of warmth. So when we talk of God we talk of you, because you are sprung off from the All-Life and share in the all-pervading life.
All scriptures give glimpses of this truth, but it has been overladen by the interpretations of primitive people, and mixed in with parables and allegories. Awakening people have to bring their logic into action. They need to sort through the jumble and lift out that which is true. This is what I do with the Bible. It is like a heap of jewels over which the dust of centuries has gathered. Turning it over searchingly, bits of truth sparkle, sending out entrancing gleams of colour, beauty and warmth.
One of these gems is the truth that you sprung off from the All-Life, so that this life is within you, What a different picture this is! How can you fail to be ever-living? Not only ever-living, but sharing in the creative power of the All-Life because the All-Life is the Creator.
Yet these wonderful facts and many more are in the scriptures. Let us dip into our “heap of dust” and bring out just one sparkling diamond. Here it is:- “Know you not that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God lives in you?”
You see, it’s there! All we need, is patience and logic. Patience to search for the jewels of truth, and logic to reason about them, so that we can recognise them and use them in our thinking.
Most people will agree that thought is an important thing. The world teems with sayings about it. “Where there’s a will there’s a way.” “Don’t worry – it may never happen.” “Thoughts are things.” When we turn to the scriptures we find, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth”. We are being told that thought is so important that it can make “all things possible” for us. A bold statement! Can we prove it to be a fact?
Perhaps already you have made half-hearted efforts in this direction. You have decided to ask for something you lacked. You have spoken a request into the ether and a few minutes later have found yourself worrying about the matter again. Then another ‘asking’ has gone out from your mind – and you have fallen into more worrying. So however hard you were thinking and trying to believe, in reality deep down, you were sceptical. The first thing to do is to get belief. How? “Prove Me now, if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing, that there will not be room enough to contain it.” Obviously the way is to prove it by practice, and this lesson will outline a method of doing so.
Everyone has heard the expression, when an incident is being described, “Believe it or not – but it happened.” The speaker knows from experience and is therefore unshakable in his belief. He is aware that he cannot pass on this belief to everyone who hears him. Some will not have had anything like it happen to them, so they will not easily believe. Others will have experienced a similar happening and will consequently find belief easy. So he sums all this up by saying, “Believe it or not – but it happened.”
You see, it’s so much simpler to believe in something that we have personally experienced – in fact, it’s almost impossible not to. We must therefore set about getting the experience that will also give us belief.
Begin by considering these universal facts. Something has created every visible thing. That something is supporting the universe still. The seasons come and go in perfect order. Grass grows, trees break into leaf and bud. Something is behind it all, some intelligence that both creates and sustains.
I have heard of people who have become convinced of the existence of the All-Life through an emotional experience. A member of the Student Family described in a letter how he encountered great danger during the last war. The place where he was, was being bombarded and he had only a shallow trench in which to lie – it was not deep enough to cover him completely. He was petrified, with panic and fear. Then he did something that he had not done for years. He prayed for protection. Soon a calmness came over him, and remained with him during the long period of the attack. At last all was still, and Then he stiffly raised himself, he found that injury or death had missed him all around by inches… He wrote that from that moment he knew that God exists. (I am telling you this from memory, but this is the gist of it).
This belief came through emotion. There are many people who find their own belief this way. If you are one of these read autobiographies of a spiritual kind, about faith in action. You will find a few of them are thrilling, awakening in you an inner knowledge of the truth.
Others find belief through the intellect, if this is your way too, read books of a scientific nature. Even a dictionary will provide a lot of interesting facts and vital items to string together into a logical whole. There are scientific books which, by stages of reasoning, will prove to you the existence of the All-Life.
In this connection I am reminded of a newspaper article which I read recently. It told of two eminent scientists who separately embarked on an investigation into the existence of a Creator. When they began, they disbelieved, but when they ended, they found that they were each compelled to turn his previous ideas right round. They declared that they had proved beyond any possibility of doubt that the universe was created and is sustained by an everywhere present, everliving Intelligence.
You will see, then, that you have plenty of scope for your seeking. In fact, if you really want to know for yourself, belief will come to you. You will no longer wonder if it is true – you will know given the glimmerings of such knowledge can make a beginning. Just as well – because it is useless to thought build for what you want in your life unless you know that the All-Life is, and that because you are sprung off from that Life, you share in that life and power.
Until they reach this basic understanding, most people think when they have a need or desire they must try to persuade some distant Being, if in existence, to give it to them. An extremely haphazard proceeding! The truth is that, when you have a desire, you use the creative power within you, the power that came with you when you sprung off from the Creator. This is not haphazard, nor distant. It is near. It is within you. It is concerned with you alone. When you realise this (have what is called belief) you will be able to think about your desires, and by your creative power, turn your thoughts into “bricks”. Then you will “build” with them the fulfilment of your desire and it will presently become a visible reality. Even at this early stage you may have read about many successes that students have achieved. That’s how they did it
Do you think you understand all this? If not, go back to the beginning of this lesson and read it all through, pausing and pondering on any point that isn’t quite clear. Give yourself time to understand, for you need this foundation knowledge for success.
Once you really understand that you are an offspring of the Creator and so are endowed with creative power, you are ready to use that power. The universe came into being by thought (obviously, as there was nothing else there at the time) your creative power is in your thought-processes.
Are you starting to thrill to this fact? Consider what it can do for you, all through the years for the rest of your life When you experience this dawning excitement, seize upon the moment if you are alone stand up, throw your arms wide and say within, “Because I am an offspring of the All-Life, I draw forth from the infinite source of all, the supply for all my needs!” Do this as often as you can, whenever you get these thrilling glimpses of knowledge. when you say this with belief it will gently and certainly become a reality for you.
The size of your desires is immaterial. They can be small or large, for all is one to the limitless Creator. But it is better to start small and, matching them to your growing belief, let them expand from there.
Have you started actually thought building yet? If you have, do you know what is happening? Things are beginning to move in the unseen, The picture you have built in your mind takes shape. You may receive a letter, unexpected or long since given up. People will suddenly become helpful and friendly. But best of all, your mind, will have received a tonic. As though, being thirsty, you drank from a cooling stream. You are filled with hope, with ideas! Whereas you could see no way out, there appears a gap before you and you go through. All at once you are uplifted on a tide of power. With this first glimpse will come new faith. Use it to draw forth your every need.
Offspring of the All-Life Exercise
Are you prone to depression, discouragement or despair? Don’t give way for one moment to self-pity! Use your thought bricks at the first sign.
Don’t say these words and then continue to think the opposite. Build these thoughts in your mind and make them part of you. And as you speak these creative words, let your mind picture or sense what you speak. Conceive a picture in your mind and you will give birth visibly to what you have pictured. Here is a mighty secret treasure it. What you can conceive you can receive. As you ponder on this secret, it will unfold much more to you.
I expect you have read many books on thought? Did they say some of the things that I have said? Of course they did! For all truth is one. But what did you do about it? Perhaps there were many interesting pages and you enjoyed reading the books immensely. You had several hours of happiness and felt uplifted by it all. But what did you do? I thought as much. Nothing actually came of it. The book just went on to the bookshelf and was eventually forgotten. But this lesson is deliberately brief and simple. It will not entertain you, for that is not my idea at all. What I want to do is to give you the truth. But to make it so clear, so simple that you cannot lose it in a wilderness of words.
If you want all your needs to be supplied you will have to practise. Not just read this, but do it. It is so simple, yet (if one could assess the value of truth) it is worth a fortune to you. Continue
thinking on the lines I have described, no matter how often you must take your straying thoughts in hand. Keep on until this positive way of thinking is a habit. You will be amazed and delighted at the result. Within a few days things will begin to move, from the time you realise and apply. Try it and see!
During this learning and experimenting period – relax. Be happy that you are an offspring of the All-Life, that you are in touch with all supply. If you live in a town and have running water always on tap, how liberal you are with it. But if you live in the remote country and have a well that is inclined to go dry in the summer, how careful you are with it. People who have no real knowledge and faith live too carefully, too anxiously. Have faith and be like those with running water on tap. The life of faith is a commonsense one. The more vividly you believe, the more practical and sensible you are, and the more carefree and serene.
So start now to fit yourself for life as one of the awakened. Thoughts are “bricks” and once you know how, you can build into your life all that you can desire. And now you do know how.
Postscript
Students of this lesson have benefited greatly during the years by the teaching given in it. Lives have been transformed after a careful study and faithful practice. Here is one account received. “Dear Bernard, I’m so poor at putting my thoughts down on paper, but nevertheless I must, try to convey to you some idea of what has happened in my circumstances since receiving and applying ‘Thought Bricks and How to Build with Them’. I cannot conceive of anyone not having belief after reading it. Belief was mine after one reading. You say, ‘Things begin to move’. Really, they have simply showered upon me as an avalanche of benefits. I needed a car for business purposes, as I spend more time waiting for buses to do my organising of the jobs than actually working. Unfortunately, I had no money to spare for this essential. I will now be taking delivery of a car next week. No deposit. Just pay off instalments monthly, which I can do easily, as I shall now be able to do about two days more work a week.
Later he wrote, “I am a building contractor in a small way. (I linked with another small builder, so we were two, with four boys to do the labour side.) I had already gone to see some big builders about a job when your lesson, ‘Thought Bricks and How to Build with Them’ came along. I left the worrying alone, by concentrating on the contents of the lesson, and I used that affirmation most earnestly and often. Now I have four houses to build, a staff of about twelve and still increasing every week. All the above happened from the time I started to practise your lesson.”
This is a further success-story from the same man:- “Words can never adequately describe the thoughts I have on all these happenings. I am left gasping at the rapidity with which things have moved on my behalf in the unseen. Incidentally, I have been wishing for years now that I had the money to buy a strip of land next to my house. It belongs to this party I am building for, and he has sold it to me, to be paid for at my convenience. ‘If you can manage, pay something towards it from every completed job’, I was told. I have been so very busy organising to get the buildings started. Now I say ‘thank you most sincerely’ for all you have sent me.”
Success stories like this are a mental stimulant, aren’t they? Read them over and over, to get the full benefit so that you too can thought build and achieve.
– Bernard