The New Alinement of Life

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.


Trine writes about living the simple life Jesus originally lived and taught as opposed to the extraneous customs that have grown from established christianity over time.


Excerpts: As there is no such thing as a real religion or a philosophy of any vitality that divorces itself from life—and every act of every-day life—so there is no such thing as a religion or a philosophy that does not project itself into the life of one’s community and straight into matters of village, city, state, and national government—into practical politics. As religion and philosophy need the contact with active affairs to keep them from a weakly and selfish sentimentality, so political life needs the broadening and the unself-centering influences of religion and philosophy to make the machinery of government a true expression of the will of the people; to serve their purposes, instead of allowing it to get into the hands of bosses and political rings and gangs for the purposes of exploitation and loot, and thereby the eventual degradation of the people.


The one great cause of our undesirable political conditions, and the reason our machinery breaks down, especially in connection with our municipal life, is the fact that the average citizen—you and I—does not give the time and attention to these, our matters, that we should give to them, but instead we allow little groups of men to get hold of affairs and do our governing for us.