Joseph Murphy was born in Ireland, the son of a private boy's school headmaster and raised a Roman Catholic. He studied for the priesthood and joined the Jesuits. In his twenties, an experience with healing prayer led him to leave the Jesuits and move to the United States, where he became a pharmacist in New York (having a degree in chemistry by that time). Here he attended the Church of the Healing Christ (part of the Church of Divine Science), where Emmet Fox had become minister in 1931. In the mid 1940s, he moved to Los Angeles, where he met Religious Science founder Ernest Holmes, and was ordained into Religious Science by Holmes in 1946, thereafter teaching at the Institute of Religious Science. A meeting with Divine Science Association president Erwin Gregg led to him being reordained into Divine Science, and he became the minister of the Los Angeles Divine Science Church in 1949, which he built into one of the largest New Thought congregations in the country. In the next decade, Murphy married, earned a PhD in psychology from the University of Southern California and started writing. After his first wife died in 1976, he remarried to a fellow Divine Science minister who was his longstanding secretary. He died in 1981.

Chapter 1 : The Song of Triumph

“Tell me, O thou (you) whom my soul loves, where thou feedest, where thou (you) makest THY (your) FLOCK to rest at noon?”
“Behold, thou ART fair, my love; behold, thou ART fair; thou HAST doves’ eyes.”
“He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me WAS love.”
“His left hand IS under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.”
“My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
“For lo (him), the winter is past, the rain is over AND gone;
“The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of BIRDS is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
“Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
“My beloved IS mine, and I AM his: he feeds among the lilies.
“Until the day break, and the shadows flee away.”

It is inconceivable that any anthology could be written wherein The Song of Solomon would not be included. It is really one of the most inspired parts of the Bible. The Song of Solomon reveals God as the Great Lover. It is ecstatic and thrilling.

In order to lead the triumphant life, you must be moved by Love, you can go wild in the joy of being actually drunk with the Spirit. In other words by singing the Song of God, you become God-intoxicated, and fired with Divine enthusiasm, thereby expressing more and more of Divine love and joy every day.

You sing the Song of God, or the mood of triumph, when you subjectively feel that you are that which your five senses tell you, you are not; you are then God-intoxicated and seized with a Divine frenzy—a sort of mad joy.

Haven’t you at times seen a person bubbling over with enthusiasm and intoxicated with joy? That person is singing the Song of God at that moment. “In thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

When you sing a song, you are expressing your whole nature; your mind and body enter into the song. When your heart is full of love and good will, and you are radiating peace, you are truly singing God’s Song; It is the song of the jubilant soul.

The real You is a spiritual, eternal, perfect being. You are a living expression of God now. “I have said, Ye are Gods; and all of you are children of the most High.”

When you pray, it is a romance with God or your good. Your desire, when realized, brings you joy and peace. In order to realize the desire of your heart, which is depicted in The Song of Solomon as your beloved, you must woo it; let that desire of yours captivate, hold, and thrill you. Let it fire your imagination. You will always move in the direction of the desire which dominates your mind.

The majority of students of psychology know that The Song of Solomon is a beautiful description of the wonderful romance of the conscious and subconscious mind (Solomon and Sheba).

“Tell me, O thou whom my soul loves, where thou feedest?” Your realized desire is he whom your soul loves. You are asked. “Where thou (you) feedest?” In other words what are you mentally dwelling upon? The flock represents your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and beliefs. You are to feast on nothing but the joy of the answered prayer.

If you are saying to yourself, “I can’t. It is too late now. I am too old, and I don’t know the right people”—in other words if you are mentally feeding on, all the reasons why you cannot do something, or be what you want to be, you not making “thy flock to rest at noon.”

At noon the sun casts no shadow; likewise, when you pray, you are not to permit any shadow of fear or doubt to cross your path, or deflect you from your goal or aim in life. The world of confusion shall be rejected, and you shall mentally eat of, or meditate on the reality of your desire.

“Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes.” The dove is a symbol of God’s inner peace.

Once I talked to an alcoholic who said, “Don’t say anything about this God-stuff to me. I don’t want God. I want a healing.” This man was deeply resentful toward a former wife who had remarried; moreover, he was full of grudges against several people. He needed the doves’ eyes, which means he needed to see the truth which would give him peace of mind.

I asked him, “Will you pray with me now? All I ask is that you be sincere; if you are, you will experience an inner peace which passes all human understanding.”

He relaxed his body, and I said to him, “Imagine you are talking to the Invisible Presence within you—the Almighty Power which created the Cosmos. It can do all things. Say, “Thank you, thank you, for this inner peace.’ Say it over and over again.”

After ten minutes in silent meditation, he was blinded by an interior, Inner Light. It seemed to come from the floor where he was. The whole room was flooded with Light!

He exclaimed, “All I see is Light! What’s wrong?” Then he relaxed into sleep in my office, and his face did truly shine as the sun. He awakened in about fifteen minutes, and was completely at peace saying, “God truly is! God is!” This man had found his Beloved; it had Doves’ eyes.

As you fall asleep at night, tell your desire how fair it is, and how wonderful you would feel in realizing it. Begin to fall in love with your ideal. Praise it; exalt it. “Arise my Love!” Feel that you are what you want to be. Go to sleep in the consciousness of being or doing what you long to do.

I told a man in one of the islands one time “to sleep” on the idea of success, he was selling magazine subscriptions. He became a great success by following this procedure: I suggested that he think of success prior to sleep; i.e., what success meant to him; what he would do if he were successful. I told him to use his imagination; then as he was about to go to sleep, fall in love with the idea of success this way: Repeat the one word, “Success,” over and over again. He should get into the mood of success; then fall off to sleep in the arms of his Everlasting Lover. Your Lover—your Divine Presence—will bring to pass whatever you accept as true. The conditions, experiences, and events of your life are called children of your mind.

“He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.” The banquet house is your own mind where you entertain the idea or desire of your heart.

I will illustrate at this point how to entertain in this banquet house of your own mind. A young girl having a special talent to sing was having great difficulty in getting anything to do in the motion picture field, television, or radio. She had been turned down so often she feared she was getting a rejection complex. She heard me state over one of our radio programs that whatever the mind of man could imagine and feel as true, he could realize. She wrote that down, and came to one of our classes, and began to practice entering into the banquet house by quieting the wheels of her mind, relaxing the body by simply talking to it, and telling it to relax; it has to obey you, In that quiet, relaxed, peaceful state, with her attention completely focused on an imaginary, movie contract in her hand, she felt the reality of the joy and wonder of it all. She was now in the banquet house and the banner over her was love. Love is an emotional attachment. She was definitely, mentally attached to this contract. “He calls things that are not seen, as though they were, and the unseen becomes seen.” The visible world comes out of the invisible. She caused the contract to become a reality by becoming emotionally attached to the imaginary picture of a contract in her mental, banquet house. She knew that what she imagined and believed must come to pass in the three-dimensional (3D) world.

“His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.” The left hand is your deep, subjective feeling; the right hand is your disciplined imagination. As you begin to imagine and feel the reality of your desire, you are joining the right and left hands together in a Divine embrace; then a union of the idea and feeling takes place. Another way of saying this is: There is an agreement of the conscious and subconscious mind which denotes the answered prayer.

You know when there is no longer any argument or doubt in your conscious or subconscious mind, your prayer is answered, because the two have agreed as touching upon it, and it is so.

“My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” Is not that what your goal, aim, ambition, or desire is saying to you? For instance the idea of perfect health is now beckoning to you, and saying, “Rise up, and come away from the belief in sickness, limitation, pain, and aches to health, harmony, and peace of mind.”

I had a long talk with a man in England who had trouble with his leg. He had been confined to his home for nine months, and was unable to lean on his leg or walk, the first thing I did was to ask him what he would do if he were healed. He said, “I would again play polo, swim, golf, and climb the alps which I used to do every year.” That was the answer I was seeking.

I told him in the simplest way how to achieve the perfect use of his legs again. The first thing was to imagine he was doing the things he would do. I painted an imaginary picture for him. For fifteen or twenty minutes three times a day he sat in his study and imagined he was playing polo; he assumed the mental mood of actually performing the role of a polo player. He became the actor; an actor participates in the role.

Note carefully that he did not see himself playing polo; that would be an illusion. He felt himself playing polo. He actualized it by living the drama in his mind or banquet house.

At noon he would quiet the mind; still the body, and feel his Alpine clothes on him. He would feel and imagine he was climbing the Alps; he would feel the cold air on his face, and hear the voice of his old associates. He lived the drama and felt the naturalness and the tangibility of the rocks.

At night prior to sleep, before going into the Arms of his Beloved—His Deeper Self—he would play a game of golf. He would hold the club; touch the ball with his hand; put it in place, and tee off. He would swing his clubs, and delight in watching where the ball went. When he was in the mood of playing a good game, he would go off to sleep feeling very satisfied and happy about his experience.

Within two months this man’s leg was healed. He did all the things he imagined he would do. The idea of climbing the Alps, plus the desire to play polo again, said to this man, “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away,” from your belief in a physical handicap; that is what he did.

The law of the subconscious is one of compulsion. When you subjectively feel you are swimming,—for example, when you feel the chill of the water, and the naturalness of your various swimming strokes,—you will sooner or later be compelled to swim. Whatever the handicap, whether fear or a physical condition, you will do what you subjectively felt you were doing.

Your desire, dream, ambition, goal, or aim is your saviour! It is walking down the corridor of your mind, saying to you, “Arise, my love, and come away,” and enjoy the good and glorious things of life.

No matter what the problem is, or its magnitude, you have really nothing to do but convince yourself of the truth which you are affirming. As quickly as you succeed in convincing yourself of the reality of your desire, results will automatically follow, your subconscious mind will faithfully reproduce what you impregnated within it.

The Bible says, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” You have the freedom to choose the tone, feeling, or mood you enter into. The manifestation of your feeling or conviction is the secret of your lover or subconscious mind. Your external actions are, therefore, determined by your subconscious beliefs and impressions.

Your thought and feeling determine your destiny. The knowledge of the truth is saying to you now, “The winter is past, the rain is over and gone.” The winter represents that cold state when the seeds are frozen in the bosom of the earth and nothing is growing. The winter and all the seasons are in your mind.

Are your desires, dreams, visions, and aims in life frozen within you due to fear, worry, or false beliefs? You can resurrect them now by turning away from appearances, entering into the banquet house of God within you, and saying to yourself, “I can be what I want to be. All I have to do is impress my subconscious mind with my desire for health, wealth, companionship, or true place, and it will express that state with which I have impressed it.

The winter is now over for you; the rain is gone also. Your mind have been flooded with negative thoughts causing the mood of despondency, dejection, and melancholia. This is what a flood or avalanche of negative thoughts, false beliefs, and erroneous opinions will do. Now you know that all you have to do is fill your mind with the truths of God which have come down to you from time immemorial. As you do this, you will crowd out of your mind everything unlike them.

The winter and the floods are over for you when regularly and systematically you fill your mind with the concept of peace, happiness, love, and goodwill. You can do this by reading one of the Psalms, such as the twenty-third or ninety-first, and feeling the truth of everything you say; or you can read aloud a good meditation of the real truths of God. As you do this, these truths go in through the eye and the ear; they release a tremendous, therapeutic vibration which courses through your entire mind and body. These curative, healing, soothing vibrations destroy, neutralize, and obliterate all the negative, fearful, diseased thoughts which caused all the trouble in your life; their embodiment must then disappear. This is prayer; do it often, enough until it becomes a habit. Prayer should be a habit also.

Do everything from the standpoint of the One God and His Love. For instance, when you shop, pray before purchasing. Say, “God guides me in all my purchases.” Say quietly to the saleslady or salesman, “God is prospering him.”

Whatever you do, do it with love and goodwill. Pour out love, peace, and goodwill to all. Claim frequently that God’s Love and Transcendent Beauty flow through all my thoughts, words, and actions. Make a habit of this. Fill your mind with the eternal verities; then you will see that “The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come!” You will begin to flower; yes, you will begin to blossom forth.

The earth means your body, environment, social life, and all things necessary on this objective plane.

The flowers you witness will be the birth of God in your mind. The flowers of God’s guidance will watch over you, and lead you to green pastures and still waters. The flowers of God’s Love will fill your heart. Now when you see discord anywhere, you will see the Love of God operating in all His Creation; as you realize it, you will see love come forth and flower in the other.

When you go into a home, and you see confusion, quarrelling, and strife, you will realize within yourself, that the peace of God reigns supreme in the minds and hearts of all those in this house; you will see the flower of peace made manifest and expressed.

Where you see financial lack and limitation, you will realize the infinite abundance and wealth of God forever flowing, filling up all the empty vessels, and leaving a Divine surplus. As you do this, you will live in the garden of God where only orchids and all beautiful flowers grow; for only God’s ideas circulate in your mind.

As you go to sleep every night, you will clothe yourself with the garment of love, peace, and joy. From now on you always go to sleep feeling that you now are what you long to be. Your last concept as you fall asleep is etched on your deeper mind; you shall resurrect it. Always take into the banquet house of your Lover a noble, Christ-like concept of yourself; your Lover will always give you what you conceive and believe as true. Anything you can conceive, your Lover can give conception. Love gives birth to all things. Your tomorrows are determined by your concept of yourself as you fall asleep in the arms of your Lover (your ideal).

The time of the singing of birds is at hand for you when you cease singing that old song of lack. You have listened to people sing this kind of song: It is like an old gramophone record: “I’m so lonesome; things never went right for me. I never had a chance. I have been cruelly treated.” “I have been operated on three times.” “You should hear about all the money I lost.” Yes, then they tell about the fear on the lonely road, plus their likes, dislikes, pet peeves, and hates. Imbued with God’s love, you will no longer sing that song again. You will sing the new song; for God’s ideas and truths (birds) will sing in you.

Then you will speak in a new tongue which means the mood of peace, joy, good will, and love. You will no longer react to people and conditions like you did. The Song of God is now heard. Now when someone says something mean or nasty to you, you will immediately transform it by realizing God’s peace fills your soul. You will consume it with the fire of right thoughts; the birds will truly sing in your mind and heart as you do. You are happy; you are bubbling over with enthusiasm, and you are looking forward with a joyous expectancy to all good things. Wherever you go, you carry peace with you; all those who come within your orbit are blessed by your inner radiance. You begin to see sermons in stones, tongues in trees, songs in running brooks, and God in everything. The voice of the turtle is now heard in your land!

Tennyson said, “Speak to Him thou, for he hears, spirit with spirit shall meet, closer is He then breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.”

The voice of the turtle dove is the voice of peace, the voice of intuition, and of God’s inner guidance. You can hear it by lowly listening. For instance one time as a boy I was lost in the woods. I sat down under a tree, and remembered a prayer which starts with, “Our Father, He will shows us the way; let us be quiet, and He will lead us.” I quietly repeated, “Father, lead us.”

A wave of peace came over me which I can still recall. The voice of the turtle dove became real. The turtle dove is intuition which means being taught from within. An overpowering feeling came over me to go in a certain direction as if I were being pushed ahead. Two of the boys came with me; the others did not. We were led out of that thick jungle, as if by an Unseen Hand.

Great musicians have listened and heard the music within; they wrote down what they heard inwardly. In meditation Lincoln listened to the principle of liberty; Beethoven heard the principle of harmony.

If you are intensely interested in the principle of mathematics, you are loving it; as you love it, it will reveal all its secrets to you.

Jesus heard the voice of the turtle dove when he said, “Peace, I leave with you; my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled; neither let it be afraid.” How wonderful you will feel as you drink in these words and fill your mind with their therapeutic potency.

Job heard the voice of the turtle when he said, “Acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace.” “Thou (you) wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee (you).” “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.”

You can hear the voice of the turtle by turning to the Infinite Intelligence within you, saying, “Father, this is what I want…”; then state specifically and clearly the thing you desire. You are now turning your desire over to the God-Wisdom within you, Which knows all, sees all, and has the “know how” of accomplishment. You always know whether you have really turned your request over or not. If you are at peace about it, you have turned it over. If anxious and worried, you have not subjectified your prayer; you do not fully trust the God-Wisdom within.

If you want guidance, claim Infinite Intelligence is guiding you now; it will differentiate Itself as right action for you. You will know you have received the answer, for the dove of peace will whisper in your ear, “Peace be still.” You will know the Divine answer, for you will be at peace, and your decision will be right.

A girl recently was wondering whether to accept a position in New York for considerably more money or remain in Los Angeles in her present position. At night as she went to sleep, she asked herself this question, “What would be my reaction if I had made the right decision now?” The answer came to her, “I would feel wonderful. I would feel happy having made the right decision.” Then she said, “I will act as though I had made the right decision,” and she began to say, “Isn’t it wonderful! Isn’t it wonderful!” over and over again, as a lullaby, and lulled herself to sleep in the feeling, “It is wonderful.”

She had a dream that night, and the voice in the dream said, “Stand still! Stand still!” She awakened immediately, and knew of course that was the voice of the turtle dove—the voice of intuition.

The fourth dimensional-self within her can see ahead; it knows all and sees all; it can read the minds of the owners of the business in the east. She remained in her present position. Subsequent events proved the truth of her Inner Voice; the Eastern concern went into bankruptcy. “I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.”

“My beloved is mine, and I am his; he feedeth among the lilies.” The lilies represent the poppies which grow in the East. To see the poppy field away in the breeze is a very beautiful sight. Here the inspired Biblical writer is telling you to have a romance with God, as you turn to the God-Presence, it turns to you. You experience the mystic marriage, the wedded bliss, when you fall madly in love with truth for truth’s sake; then you become full of the new wine, the new interpretation of life.

The lilies symbolize beauty, order, symmetry, and proportion. As you feed or feast on the great truth that God is Indescribable Beauty, Boundless Love, Absolute Bliss, Absolute Harmony, and Infinite Peace, you are truly, feeding among the lilies. When you claim that what is true of God is true of you, miracles will happen in your life.

By realizing and knowing these qualities and attributes of God are being expressed through you, and that you are a channel for the Divine, every atom of your being begins to dance to the rhythm of the Eternal God. Beauty, order, harmony, and peace appear in your mind, body, and business world as you feed among the lilies; you feel your oneness with God, Life, and God’s Infinite Riches. You are married to your Beloved, for you are now married to God; you are a bride of the Lord (I AM).From the moment forward you will bring forth children of your beloved; they will bear the image and likeness of their Father and Mother.

The father is God’s idea; the mother is the emotionalizing of the idea, and its subjective embodiment. From that union of idea and feeling come forth your health, abundance, happiness, and inner peace.

Sit down and feed among the lilies by realizing that every night of the year when you go to sleep, you go before the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and the Prince of Peace. Be sure you are dressed properly as you enter into His Holy Presence. If you were going before the President, you would put on your best clothes. The clothes you wear as you enter into the heavens of your own mind every night represent the mood, or the tone you wear. Be sure it is always the wedding garment of love, peace, and good will to all.

Be absolutely sure that you can say,” “Behold, thou art fair.” There must be no resentment, ill-will, condemnation of self or others, and no criticism of any person. God’s Love must really fill your heart for all men everywhere. You must sincerely wish for everyone what you wish for yourself; then you can say to your mood or feeling, “Behold, thou art fair.” “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any.”

“My beloved is mine.” All that God is, is yours, for God is within you. All you can possibly desire is already yours. You need to help from the outside to feed among the lilies.

When you go to sleep tonight, forgive everyone. And imagine and feel your desire is fulfilled. Become absolutely and completely indifferent to all thought of failure, because you now know the law. As you accept the end, you have, as Troward so beautifully stated, willed the means to the realization of the end. As you are about to enter sleep, galvanize yourself into the feeling of being or having your desire. Your mental acceptance or your feeling as your as you go to sleep is the request you make of your Beloved; then She looks at your request (conviction in the subconscious mind), and being the Absolute Lover, she must give you what you asked.

“You feed among the lilies until the day breaks and the shadows flee away.” The shadows are fear, doubt, worry, anxiety, and all the reasons why you cannot do something. The shadows of our five senses and race belief hover over the minds of all as we pray.

When you pray, accept as true what your reason and five senses deny and reject. Remain faithful to your idea by being full of faith every step of the way. When your consciousness is fully qualified with the acceptance of your desire, all the fear will go away. Trust in the reality of your ideal or desire until you are filled full of the feeling of being it; then the day will break and all shadows will flee away. Yes, the answer to your prayer will come, and light up the heavens of your mind bringing you peace.

No matter what the problem is, how acute, dark, or hopeless things seem to be, turn now to God, and say, “How is it in God and Heaven?” The answer will softly steal over your mind like the dew from heaven: “All is peace, joy, bliss, perfection, wholeness, harmony, and beauty”; then reject the evidence of your senses, and feed among the lilies of God and Heaven, such as peace, harmony, joy, and perfection. Realize what is true of God must be true of you and your surroundings. Continue in this abiding trust and faith in God “until the day breaks and the shadows flee away.”