You Can Be Happy: Find Your Purpose and Create a Life of Peace, Joy, and Wholeness

By Clara Beranger and William F Shannon

You Can Be Happy is one woman’s deeply sincere and eloquent explanation of the practical faith which brought her freedom from fear and depression, and a dynamic positive outlook upon life. It is one person’s example of how anyone can use the New Thought philosophy of life to improve themselves and their circumstances.

The author provides a road map to peace, joy and wholeness.  She offers advice to people who have lost their way, and she provides a spiritual foundation for those who are questioning the meaning of life after the upheavals of war and economic turmoil.  The book can be read as a series of meditations on a larger theme.  The author’s strong belief in the huge influence of the subconscious mind, and our ability to use the conscious mind to harness it, is the foundation of the entire book. Each chapter shows how to harness the power of the subconscious mind to live with purpose.

This classic has been out of print and unavailable for many years. This new edition is edited into gender neutral language for the 21st century, making the author’s story of her experience freshly accessible to a new audience.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hudson Mohawk Press
• Release date: Apr 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781940124025

Book preview

You Can Be Happy :

Find Your Purpose and Create a Life of Peace, Joy, and Wholeness

by

Clara Beranger

Edited and Updated for the 21st Century

by

William F. Shannon

Hudson Mohawk Press

Troy , NY

Hudson Mohawk Press LLC

400 Broadway #1 726

Troy , New York 121 8 0

www.hudsonmohawkpress.com

www.facebook.com/hudsonmohawkpress

I ntroduction, e diting, and updating

c opyright © 201 8 by Hudson Mohawk Press LLC

All rights reserved.

This edited and updated edition first published in the United States in 201 8 by Hudson Mohawk Press LLC . You Can Be Happy was previously published in different form in 19 46 by DeVorss & Co., Los Angeles . This work is not published by the original publishers of You Can Be Happy or by their successors.

The text of this edition has been edited into gender neutral language, except when to do so would render the text awkward for the reader.

ISBN 978- 1 - 940124-01-8 (paperback)

eISBN 978-1-940124-0 2 - 5

Book design by William F. Shannon

CONT E NTS

Title Page

Copyright

Editor's Introduction

Author's Foreword

Chapter 1 -- What Do We Believe?

Chapter 2 -- Is Religion Compatible with Science?

Chapter 3 -- What Has Psyc h ology Taught Us?

Chapter 4 -- How Does Thinking Affect Our Lives?

Chapter 5 -- What Is Intuition?

Chapter 6 -- What Do We Mean By God?

Chapter 7 -- Let Go

Chapter 8 -- Be Still

Chapter 9 -- Speak the Word

Chapter 10 -- Move Your Feet

Chapter 11 --- Stay On the Beam

Chapter 12 -- Awake and Sing

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

by William F. Shannon

C lara Beranger wrote You Can Be Happy in 1946 after the end of World War Two, with enthusiastic optimism about the possibilities for the future. After years of war following the Great Depression, the author provides for the reader a road map to peace, joy and wholeness. She offers advice to people who have lost their way, and she provides a spiritual foundation for those who are questioning the meaning of life after the upheavals of war and economic turmoil. Not everyone was as optimistic as Beranger in 1946, with the specter of nuclear annihilation hanging over the world after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But in keeping with the philosophy of New Thought, Beranger chose to look at the positive and use it to overpower the negative.

Beranger’s insights are as relevant today as they were in 1946. Technology may have changed many aspects of daily life in the intervening years, but today political leaders and those who control them still force us to live in a state of perpetual war, dragging us from one manufactured security crisis to the next, while at the same time the global economy struggles to recover from the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression that provided the frame of reference for Beranger’s book. In many ways not much has changed in 70 years. Thus, Clara Beranger’s insights can help the 21 st century reader just as much as they helped readers in the mid-20 th century.

The book can be read as a series of meditations on a larger theme. The author’s strong belief in the huge influence of the subconscious mind, and our ability to use the conscious mind to harness it, is the foundation of the entire book. Each chapter shows how to harness the power of the subconscious mind to live with purpose, because in the author’s view to really live we must have a purpose. It is important to remember that our purpose is unique to each of us. We must each find our own purpose for ourselves and in ourselves. We cannot rely on society to show us where to look, and we certainly cannot rely on society to provide us with the answer.

Beranger believed that we must have a religion before we may hope for what she called our share of life. She felt we must have a God. Throughout the book she quotes often from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, something that may give some readers pause if they are not comfortable with the language or if such language carries negative connotations for them. But we must remember that the author was writing out of a time and place and circumstance in which the language and symbols and terminology of the Christian religion were considered an essential part of the common culture. She was trying to explain New Thought concepts in a religious language that most readers could understand. The author writes about our desire for light, and our groping toward it – the journey of all spiritual seekers. The reader should not be put off by the scripture quotes and Christian references but instead should look behind them for the spiritual truths the author is trying to convey, truths that transcend any particular religion and are common to all spiritual paths.

On a more practical level, Beranger reminds us to focus on what we would like to see happen (the positive) rather than on what you don't like about present circumstances (the negative). This notion is at the core of all New Thought and is the first step in moving toward a life of peace, joy and wholeness. As Beranger says, unless energy is directed into constructive channels, it will find outlets which are apt to be destructive. So we must claim our power, decide how to use it, and then follow through with intention, action, and attention to the consequences, so that we choose our own constructive channels.

You Can Be Happy is one woman's deeply sincere and eloquent explanation of the practical faith which brought her freedom from fear and depression, and a dynamic positive outlook upon life. It is one person’s example of how anyone can use the New Thought philosophy of life to improve themselves and their circumstances. This classic has been out of print and unavailable for many years. This new edition is edited into gender neutral language for the 21 st century, making the author's story of her experience freshly accessible to a new audience. We hope you enjoy the journey.

* * * * *

Clara Beranger (1886-1956) was a screenwriter for both silent and talking motion pictures. Prior to screenwriting Clara went into journalism, writing for various magazines and studying playwriting after obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree from Goucher College. In 1921 she moved to Los Angeles to write scripts for Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she married the film director and producer William B. De Mille in 1928 after collaborating with him on several screen treatments. Beranger retired from writing pictures in 1934 and went on to teach screenwriting at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of California . She also frequently wrote on the subject of New Thought for various magazines, and wrote inspirational books like You Can Be Happy .

* * * * *

William F. Shannon is the Publisher and Editor of Hudson Mohawk Press. He holds a Master of Arts in Integrated Studies/Cultural Studies from Athabasca University in Canada, a Bachelor of Arts in Religion from the Hunter College of the City University of New York and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from New York University.

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

O ptimist s ha ve difficulty in making themselves heard today above the gloomy utterances of the pessimists who are skeptical about human nature, doubtful about the progress of civilization, fearful about the future.

Most of us are so busy saying what's wrong with the world that we never stop to think what may be right about it. We do not take time to look at the present in the light of the past, nor to examine human conduct for possible ca uses of existing conditions.

Continuous defeatism about today, and hopelessness about tomorrow, goaded me into asking myself some questions. Why is it that countries which are bound together physically by means of modern scientific inventions are still so far apart in understanding? Why is it that with the heritage of thought and accomplishment of one people available to all other people , they have not been able to get together in mutual harmony and friendship? Why do nations distrust one another to the point of war? And why, now that science is providing us with greater physical comforts than we ever had before, and psychology teaching us to understand ourselves better, are we still unable to find the way to a satisfying and peaceful life?

Research into historical fact, into the influences at work in the life of humanity throughout the various stages of its evolution supplied answers to my questions which gave me not only reason for optimism, but a satisfying pattern for living.

CHAPTER 1 -- WHAT DO WE BELIEVE?

T ow ard the end of the eighteenth century, there was born in Germany a child who was destined to affect the educational system of the world. His name, almost forgotten now, is Friedrich Froebe l . His mother died when he was an infant, and his father, a pastor, was so busy with his flock that he had little time to devote to his children. Little Friedrich, neglected and unhappy in his childhood, carried through life the idea that children ought not to be neglected or unhappy; and the concentrated emotional thought he gave to this idea led to his founding the first play-school for children of pre-school age. He called it kindergarten, meaning literally children's garden, because he believed that a child is a plant to be trained, not a piece of clay to be molded to the external will of the teacher.

Although Froebe l himself may be forgotten, the name kindergarten is still applied to schools where little children are actively constructive in a way which seems like play; and the Froebel method of training is carried out in kindergartens all over the world. Learn by doing is the keynote of their activities. The games children play, the beads they thread, the paper they cut up or color, the plaiting, drawing, modeling, singing, dancing, gymnastics they do, have been carefully designed to satisfy the child's normal love of play and need for activity, at the same time that they develop the child's intelligence.

Froebel believed that naughtiness in children is not caused by basic character faults, but by misdirected or undirected energy. Healthy children are like animals with apparently limitless vitality. If this vitality is not directed into constructive