to whom He gave life. He has placed it within their reach and has given them the power to go and obtain it. Just as He has prepared sustenance for all the birds, but, having given them the means of obtaining it through their own efforts, has not thrown it into their nests; so, with the same end, He has endowed man with the necessary tool to dig and labor for his bread. It is the process of obtaining his necessities that develops man and makes life interesting. A life of simple comfort, obtained through one's own efforts, a life free from forebodings and fear, is a goal to be desired more ardently than a superabundance of wealth and luxury.

30. Persistent fear should be regarded as a mental ailment. One afflicted with chronic fear should rid himself of it through visualized prayer, as explained in previous pages. In preparation for prayer, he should, as usual, place himself in a position of ease and repose, and close his eyes. He should then visualize divine help emanating in the form of rays of courage and optimism and saturating his center of thought. This mental prayer should be repeated each day for a period of fifteen minutes, and the fear-thoughts will disappear. The following affirmative prayer should be used, where the individual is unable to visualize his prayer: "The Divine Mind is watching over me, He is protecting me; I have nothing to fear." And his prayer will be answered.

CHAPTER XVIII

GRIEF

1. Grief is but another form of worry. Worry is anxiety about the future, grief is anxiety about the past. Sinful as it is to worry about the future, it is equally sinful to grieve about the past. One who is fortified with faith, cannot become the prey of grief, just as he cannot be the victim of worry. The consciousness that he lives in the hand of a kindly Power, whose sole care is the destiny of those whom He brought into existence, frees him from these two burdens. He then realizes that life and destiny are entirely under the care of a Power superior to himself and it is a Power that has created the world in order to give expression to goodness and happiness. When man realizes this truth, he cannot brood over the past or drown himself in grief; for God's work is always for the best, it is only for man to open his eyes and see the true significance of events.

2. Men's grief, for the most part, centers either on the loss of a dear one, or on the loss of wealth, or on the commission of past sins.

3. Death is the most mysterious event in man's life, and therefore a great deal of speculation as well as fantastic illusions about its nature have multiplied throughout the ages. But death is not more mysterious than

life. Death is not a cessation of existence, for cessation of existence is utterly impossible entities may change their form, but not their substance; death is but the elimination of the tools for terrestrial adjustment and the elevation of the being to a higher state of life.

4. Elimination for the sake of a higher growth is experienced even in the growth of consciousness. Babyhood dies and makes room for childhood; childhood dies to make room for youth, youth dies to make room for maturity; and when this attains its complete form, it also dies to make room for eternal life a state stripped of all earthly limitations, akin to the reality of God Himself.

5. Death, therefore, is no calamity, it is an elevation. We must regard it with hope and trust in the goodness of God that whatever He created was not for the sake of annihilation, but for growth. Expression of sorrow for the departed may assuage the wounded emotions, but to abandon oneself to grief is sinful; it shows a lack of faith in God's mercy, a lack of belief in God's kindness. God does not uproot that which He once planted, and that knowledge alone should forbid uncontrolled grief over those who have passed before. Moreover, man must not grieve, because life was not given him for grief; man has the essence of God within him, it is his life source; life is an outflow of this essence, and it is impossible to conceive His essence as suffering from grief. To steep oneself in sorrow for the dead is akin to the ancient custom of scathing the flesh for the sake of God. In either case, this self-punishment, consciously or unconsciously inflicted, is contrary to the spirit of faith. Grief tends

to undermine health and drive out the cheerful rays from the mind; it generates an unsalubrious atmosphere for the living, who have been given life in order to enjoy it, not to lay it waste in untoward grief.

6. The Talmud is therefore strongly opposed to excessive grief. The sages of the Talmud, who well understood the meaning of death, instructed man to praise God for death as well as for life. The prayer of the Kadish, recited by the bereaved, is not a lamentation, but an outpouring of adoration to the Almighty for the mercy which He manifests through creation, both in life and in death. "Whatever the All-merciful does is for good."

7. The grief that men suffer over the loss of wealth is even more sinful and also absurd. Wealth is a medium for the attaining of sustenance and comfort, no more. It is needless to say that it in no wise equals the value of life itself-which grief tends to ravage and destroy. The sacrifice of health, the surrender of serenity, the engendering of worries, all for the mere attainment of wealth is an unflattering reflection on the manhood of man. The individual must needs first lose sight of the true values of life, before he can subordinate himself to the worship of gold; he must needs become oblivious of God when he prostrates himself before the golden calf. It marks the degeneration of an individual, as it does that of a people, when all his aims are centered upon the acquisition of wealth. Sustenance and comfort are essential and man should indeed work for their attainment; it is only the sacrifice of the self for wealth, wealth for its own sake, that degrades him and makes his efforts purposeless.

After a man's needs are satisfied, wealth ceases to serve a function in his life, and all his toil for its acquisition is really to no purpose. It is proper for man to seek happiness, but it is not becoming to run after a fortune. Not all who possess wealth are happy, nor are all the poor unhappy; for happiness is very little a matter of wealth or affluence.

8. To grieve, therefore, over the loss of wealth is to do oneself a double injury. Even if grief could bring back the lost wealth, it would be a great question still whether one should pay such a price for wealth. Grief undermines the health, depresses the spirit, imprisons the forces within man that make for happiness; such a price for wealth would well be disproportionate to the comforts that wealth may bring. How much less, then, should one grieve over lost wealth with the knowledge that grief would not in the least measure restore it. On the contrary, when one grieves and pities himself, and centers his mind on his poverty, that very attitude imprisons and restrains the impulses of the individual that might otherwise work for the restitution of wealth. To gain wealth, one must keep his mind free from all thoughts of poverty and failure. If a man sustains losses, he must also lose them from his memory. A loss must never be permitted to develop into a chronic agony. It must be uprooted from thought, destroyed from memory; its place must be levelled; then the mind must be planted with new aspirations, watered with fresh hopes, watched with care and faith; fresh schemes, new enterprises, will shoot forth and bloom, and bear again the fruit of prosperity. The art