Napoleon Hill Golden Rules to auto suggestion. He term auto suggestion simply means self
suggestion sugs ty in which one deliberately makes to oneself. James Allen, in
his excellent Little Magazine, As a Man Thinks, has given the world a
fine lesson in auto suggestion by having shown that a man may literally make himself
over through this process of self suggestion. This lesson, like James Allen's magazine,
is intended mainly as a means of stimulating men and women to the discovery
in percept tian of the truth that they themselves are makers of themselves by virtue
of the thoughts which they choose and encourage, that mind is the master weaver
both of the inner garment of character in the outer garment of circumstance, and
that as they have hitherto woven in ignorance, pain and grief, they may
now weave in enlightenment and happiness. This lesson is not a preachment, nor
is it a treatise on morality or ethics. It is a scientific treatise through
which the student may understand the reason why the first rung in the magic ladder
to success was placed there, and how to make the principle back of that
rung a part of his or her own working equipment with which to master life's
most important economic problems. This lesson is based upon the following facts. One
dot. Every movement of the human body is controlled and directed by thought,
that is, by orders sent out from the brain, where the mind has
its seat of government. Two dot. The mind is divided into two sections,
one being called the conscious section, which directs our bodily activities while we
are awake, and the other being called the subconscious section, which controls our
bodily activity while we are asleep. Three dot. The presence of any thought
or idea in one's conscious mind, and probably the same is true of thoughts
and ideas in the subconscious division of the mind, tends to produce a passociated
feeling and to urge one to appropriate bodily activity in transforming the thought so held
into physical reality. For example, one can develop courage and self confidence by
the use of the following or some similar positive statement, or by holding the
thought of this statement in one's mind constantly. I believe in myself, I
am courageous, I can accomplish whatever I undertake. This is called auto suggestion.
We shall now proceed to give you the modus operandi through which the first
step in the magic ladder to success can be appropriated and used. To begin
with search diligently until you find the particular work to which you wish to devote
your life, taking care to see that you select that which will profit all
who are affected by your activities. After you have decided what your life work
is to be, write out a clear statement of it, and, then,
committed to memory. Several times a day, and especially just before going
to sleep at night, repeat the words of this written description of your life
work, and affirm to yourself that you are attracting to you the necessary forces,
people, and material things with which to attain the open object of your
life work, or your definite aim in life. Bear in mind that your
brain is literally a magnet, and that it will attract to you other people
who harmonize in thought and in ideals with those thoughts which dominate your mind and
those ideals which are most deeply seated in you. There is a law,
which we may properly call the law of attraction, through the operation of which
water seeks its level, and everything throughout the universe of like nature seeks its
kind. If it were not for this law, which is as immutable as
the law of gravitation, which keeps the planets in their proper places, the
cells out of which an oak tree grows might scamper away and become mixed with
the cells out of which the poplar grows, thereby producing a tree that would
be part poplar and part oak. But such a phenomenon has never been heard
of. Following this law of attraction a little further, we can see how
it works out among men and women. We know that successful prosperous men of
affairs seek the companionship of their own, while the down and outer seeks his
kind, And this happens just as naturally as water flows downhill like attracts like
a fact which is indisputable. Then if it is true that men are constantly
seeking the companion ship of those whose ideals and thoughts harmonize with their own,
can you not see the importance of so controlling and directing your thoughts and ideals
that you will eventually develop exactly the kind of magnet in your brain that you
wish to serve as an attraction in drawing others to you. If it is
true, that the very presence of any thought in your conscious mind has a
tendency to arouse you to bodily muscular activity that will correspond with the nature of
the thought. Can you not see the advantage of selecting with care the thoughts
which you allow your mind to dwell upon. Read these lines carefully, and
think over and digest the meaning which they convey. Because we are now laying
the foundation for a scientific truth, which constitutes the very foundation upon which all
worth while human accomplishment is based. We are beginning now to build the roadway
over which you will travel out of the wilderness of doubt, discouragement, uncertainty,
and failure. And we want you to familiarize yourself with every inch of
this road. No one knows what thought is, but every philosopher and every
man of scientific ability who has given any study to the subject is in accord
with the statement that thought is a powerful form of energy which directs the activities
of the human body, that every idea held in the mind through prolonged concentrated
thought takes on perma neant form and continues to affect the bodily activities according to
its nature, either consciously or unconsciously. Auto suggestion, which is nothing more
or less than an idea held in the mind through thought, is the only
known principle through which one may literally make one's self over after any pattern he
or she may choose