Help Yourself and Heaven Will Help You

1. Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and you shall find; knock at the door and it shall be opened to you; for whoever  asks receives, and whoever seeks finds,  and it shall be opened to the one who knocks at the door.

Also, who is the man among you who will give a stone to his son when he asks for bread? Or if he asks him for a fish, will give him a serpent? If, therefore, you, being evil as you are, know how to give good things to your children, it is even more reasonable that your Father, who is in heaven, will give good things to those who ask him.(Mt. 7:7-11)

2. From the earthly point of view, the maxim: Seek and you shall find is analogous  to this one: Help yourself and heaven will help you. It is the principle of the law of labor and, consequently, the law of progress, because progress is the child of labor, and labor sets in motion the powers of the intelligence.

During    humankind’s     infancy,   humans    apply    their intelligence only to the search for nourishment, the means to shelter themselves from the inclemency of the weather and to defend themselves against their enemies. However, God  has given them  more than  to  the animal: the incessant  desire  to better  themselves; it is this desire that drives them to seek out means of improving their situation, which in turn leads them to discoveries, inventions and to the perfecting of science, because it is science that provides them with what they lack. Through their  research, their  intelligence expands and  their  morals become purified. The needs of the body are followed by the needs of the spirit. After physical nourishment, humans need spiritual nourishment, and it is thus that humans pass from the primitive to the civilized state. However, the  progress that  each person  accomplishes individually during  his  or  her  lifetime is  very little,  even imperceptible to many. How, then, could humankind progress without  the  preexistence and  re-existence of  the  soul? If souls departed every day never to return, humankind would be  constantly renewing itself with  primitive beings, having everything to do and everything to learn. Consequently, there would be no reason for humans to be more advanced today than in the early ages of the world, since with each birth all intellectual labor would have to  recommence. On  the other hand, by returning with the progress it has accomplished, and each time acquiring a little more, the soul passes gradually from barbarism to materialistic civilization  and from there to moral civilization.