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* Take the case
of a man who desires to "run away" with another man's wife. The one
immutable Law of Individuality says no man owns a wife. Instead of
this being a problem with two men and one man's property as factors, it is
a case of three individuals with god-given rights of individual
choice. You have heard it said that "where two are agreed as touching
anything it shall be done unto them." It takes two to make, or to keep
made, a bargain. No matter what hallucinations in regard to ownership any
man may labor under, he does not own a wife. He has no more
"rights" over one woman than over another, or over another man, except as the
woman herself gives him the right and keeps on giving it to him. The Law of Individuality
is absolute, and in due time husbands will know better than to
imagine they own wives; wives will know better than to be owned; and the
other man will not imagine he can gain great pleasure from
"running away" with anything. Each will be free and leave the others so. But "as a
man thinketh in his heart so is he." Until a man recognizes the Law of
Individuality his actions are governed by the Law he does recognize, and
his desires act accordingly. When he desires to "run away"
with anything his conscience tells him he is stealing. If desire is strong
enough he steals a wife, and eventually suffers for it. For, though he may
not have broken a real law, he has broken an imagined one and in his
own mind he deserves punishment and in his own mind he gets it.
"As a man thinketh so is he," and what he is determines what he attracts. Never was a
deeper, truer saying than Paul's "BLESSED is the man that doubteth not
in that thing which he alloweth." The man who waits, until he is
"fully persuaded in his own mind" will be blessed in following
desire, and he will grow in wisdom thereby. The man who
thinks his desire is "bad" and yet follows it, will grow in wisdom by
the scourging he gets. He has transgressed his conception of
the One Law and suffers in getting back to at-one-ment. In either case
he grows in wisdom and eventually he will desire only in accordance
with the One Law of Individual Choice. There is no
question of "ought" about it. The individual is free to follow desire
or to crucify it. And the fact is, he follows desire when he crucifies
it. He desires to crucify desire, because he is afraid to gratify it. The man who is
not afraid follows desire and grows fast in wisdom and
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