Ralph Waldo Trine (1866–1958) was one of the early teachers of the New Thought philosophy which grew in America from the Transcendentalist philosophy of Emerson and Thoreau. New Thought is actually the most ancient thought. It is the power of thought in the individual and our ability to tune in to the source of all power and inspiration, Infinite Spirit. It is based upon no fixed creed, but relies on the perpetual renewal of thought in the individual as it ultimately relates to the whole.

Excerpts: The moment we fully and vitally realize who and what we are, we then begin to build our own world even as God builds His.

When Divine Being manifests itself in physical human form, its inward essential nature or reality changes not, for this from its very nature it is impossible for it in any way to do. It does, however, have to manifest itself through the agency of physical senses, and precisely for this reason is it that for a time our real inward Essential Nature and Life is concealed from us, but this again only by reason of our limited comprehension.

God, then, is the Infinite Being, the Infinite Spirit which is the essential essence, the life of all, which therefore fills all the universe with Himself alone, so that all is He, since He is all.

Although the answer to our title has been given both in lines and between lines long before this, it may be an aid to us, especially in making practical what is to follow, to put it as best we can into a definite form: The greatest thing ever known—indeed, the greatest thing that ever can be known—is that in our real essential nature we are one with the Infinite Life and Power, and that by coming into, and dwelling continually in, the <i>conscious, living realisation</i> of this great fact, we enable to be manifested unto us and actualised within us the qualities and powers of the Divine Life, and this in the exact degree of the completeness of this realisation on our part.