Stillness · “Stillness Reveals”
Touching the Great Within
Make repeated, deeply-felt contact with the ‘great within’ — the larger, mostly-unconscious depth of oneself — by holding the conviction ‘there is more of me,’ so the mind draws on finer states rather than living only on the surface.
Sit quietly and drop beneath the surface chatter into deep, sincere feeling. Hold — and feel — the conviction “there is more of me, so much more it can’t be measured.” Recognition is the door: you draw on the depth only insofar as you become conscious of it. Govern your finer forces by feeling — to change a mood, throw your whole soul into an engaging aim. Make brief contact with these “sublime” states often, then bring what you gain into practical work. Plant your best thought now; let it return in its own time.
What it is
Larson’s culminating practice — his answer to “going into the silence,” but in his own distinctive key. He does not give a breath-and-relax silence protocol (as Seton, Tingley, or Haanel do). For Larson, the “higher forces in man… act invariably through our most sublime states of consciousness,” and the greatest power of all is “the power to discern the more that is in him.” Most people fail, he says, simply “because they believe that what exists on the surface is all there is of man.” So the practice is a conviction-and-contemplation discipline: in quiet, repeatedly recognise and feel the vast “great within” — the mostly-unconscious depth he calls “a live wire” — by holding “there is more of me… so much more that it cannot be measured,” until the mind begins to “charge” from that depth.
Paired with this is his rule for the finer forces: they are governed by feeling — “all the finer forces are controlled by feeling… Try to feel what you want done… and you will place in action forces that correspond.”
The Method
- Get beneath the surface. “As long as the mind acts on the surface of consciousness, we have very little control of those finer elements… but when the mind goes into the depths of feeling, into the depths of realization… then it is that it touches everything that has real worth.” Settle until your feeling is “deep and sincere” — that itself is what he calls entering the “psychological field.”
- Hold the conviction ‘there is more of me.’ “To live, think and act in the realization that ‘there is more of me’ should be the constant aim of every individual.” Impress it “so constantly and so deeply… that it becomes a positive conviction.” Recognition is the doorway: “consciousness is the door… we open the door to those things only of which we become conscious.”
- Feel toward the live wire. “The great within is a live wire; when the mind touches the great within, it becomes charged more and more with those same immense powers” — contact is made by living in the firm conviction, with feeling, that the depth is real and immeasurable. (Don’t merely think the words; feel the largeness.)
- Govern the finer forces by feeling. “Try to feel what you want done… you will place in action forces that correspond to what you want done.” To change an undesired emotional state: “begin to think deeply and in the most interesting manner possible, of those things that you wish to accomplish… throw your whole soul into those new directions, and you will soon find your undesired feelings disappearing.”
- Enter ‘sublime’ states frequently. “It is highly important that we attain the power to enter sublime consciousness at frequent intervals… to get [the higher forces] we must go to the heights frequently.” Make brief contact a regular habit, then bring what you gained “down to earth for practical use.”
- Sow, then allow the return. Deeply-felt conscious actions “enter the unconscious field… and later will come back with fully developed qualities.” So plant the best thought now and let time deliver it — “some time always intervenes between the period of sowing and the period of reaping.”
Source & Lineage
Your Forces and How to Use Them (1912), Chapters XIX (“The Higher Forces in Man”) and XX (“The Greatest Power in Man,” the book’s final chapter). Larson’s “great within” / “more of me” is his variation on the New Thought “silence” and the “indwelling power” theme (cf.
Trine’s In Tune with the Infinite). Christian D. Larson (1874-1962). → (larson christian d).
Common refinements
Treating it as a verbal mantra. “There is more of me” repeated dryly is the empty/surface mode Larson warns against; it must be felt as a large realization.
- Chasing trance. This is grounded conviction and brief absorption, not dissociative trance; keep it sober.
- Grandiosity / magical expectation. “Limitless inner power” can inflate or, on failure, turn into self-blame (“I didn’t realize hard enough”). Hold it as a working confidence in untapped capacity, not a guarantee.
- Impatience. Larson is explicit about a sowing/reaping lag — deeply-felt aims return “weeks or months later.” Don’t abandon the seed early.