Speaker 1: Chapter thirteen, The attractive power desire force. We have discussed
the necessity of getting rid of fear that your desire
may have full strength with which to work. Supposing that
you have mastered this part of the task, or at
least started on the road to mastery, I will now
call your attention to another important branch of the subject.
I allude to the subject of mental leaks. No, I
don't mean the leakage arising from your failure to keep
your own secrets. That is also important, but forms another story.
The leakage I am now referring to is in that occasion,
by the habit of having attention attracted to and distracted
by every passing fancy. In order to attain a thing,
it is necessary that the mind should fall in love
with it and be conscious of its existence almost to
the exclusion of everything else. You must get in love
with the thing you wish to attain, just as much
as you would if you were to meet the girl, girl,
or man you wished to marry. I do not mean
that you should become a monomaniac upon the subject and
should lose all interest in everything else in the world.
That won't do, for the mind must have recreation and change.
But I do mean that you must be so set
upon the desired thing that all else will seem of
secondary importance. A man in love may be pleasant to
everyone else, and may go through the duties and pleasures
of life with good spirit, but underneath it all he
is humming to himself just one girl, and every one
of his actions is bent toward getting that girl and
making a comfortable home for her. Do you see what
I mean? You must get in love with the thing
you want, and you must get in love with it
in earnest. None of this latter day flirting on to
day and off tomorrow sort of love. But the good
old fashioned kind that used to make it impossible for
a young man to get to sleep unless he took
a walk around his best girl's house. Sure it was
still there. That's the real kind. And the man or
woman in search of success must make of that desired
thing his ruling passion. He must keep his mind on
the main chance success is jealous. That's why we speak
of her as feminine. She demands a man's whole affection,
and if he begins flirting with other fair charmers, she
soon turns her back upon him. If a man allows
his strong interest in the main chance to be sidetracked,
he will be the loser. Mental force operates best when
it is concentrated. He must give to the desired thing
your best and most earnest thought. Just as the man
who is thoroughly in love will think out plans and schemes,
whereby he may please the fair one, so will a
man who is in love with his work or business
give it his best thought, and the result will be
that one hundred and one plans will come into his
field of consciousness, many of which are very important works
on the subconscious plane, remember, and almost always along the
lines of the ruling passion or desire. It will fix
up things and patch together plans and schemes, and when
you need them the most, it will pop them into
your consciousness, and you'll feel like hurrahing, just as if
you had received some valuable aid from outside. But if
you scatter your thought force, the subconscious mind will not
know just how to please you, and the result is
that you are apt to be put off from this
source of aid and assistance. Beside this, you will miss
the powerful result of concentrated thought in the conscious working
out of the details of your plans. And then again,
the man whose mind is full of a dozen interests
fails to exert the attracting power that is manifested by
the man of one ruling passion, and he fails to
draw to him persons, things, and results that will aid
in the working out of his plans, and will also
fail to place himself in the current of attraction, whereby
he is brought into contact with those who will be
glad to help him because of harmonious interests. I have
noticed in my own affairs that when I would allow
myself to be sidetracked by anything outside of my regular
line of work, it would only be a short time
before my receipts dropped off and my business showed signs
of a lack of vitality. Now, many say that this
was because I had left undone some things that I
would have done if my mind had been centered on
the business. This is true. But I have noticed like
results in cases where there was nothing to be done,
cases in which the seed was sown and the crop
was awaited, And in just such cases, as soon as
I directed my thought to the matter, the seed began
to sprout. I do not mean that I had to
send out great mental waves with the idea of affecting people,
not a bit of it. I simply began to realize
what a good thing I had, and how much people
wanted it, and how glad they would be to know
of it, and all that sort of thing. And lo,
my thoughts seemed to vitalize the work, and the seed
began to sprout. This is no mere fancy, for I
have experienced it on several occasions. I have spoken to
many others on the subject, and I find that our
experiences tally perfectly. So don't get into the habit of
permitting these mental leaks. Keep your desire fresh and active,
and let it get in its work without interference from
conflicting desires. Keep in love with the thing you wish
to attain, feed your fancy with it. See it as
accomplished already, But don't lose your interest. Keep your eye
on the main chance, and keep your one ruling passion
strong and vigorous. Don't be a mental polygamist. One mental
love is all that a man needs, that is, one
at a time. Some scientists have claimed that something that
might as well be called love is at the bottom
of the whole of life. They claim that love of
the plant for water causes it to send forth its
roots until the loved thing is found. They say that
the love of the flower for the sun causes it
to grow away from the dark places so that it
may receive the light. The so called chemical affinities are
really a form of love, and desire is a manifestation
of this universal life love. So I am not using
a mere figure of speech when I tell you that
you must love the thing you wish to attain. Nothing
but intense love will enable you to surmount the many
obstacles placed in your path. Nothing but that love will
enable you to bear the burdens of the task. The
more desire you have for a thing, the more you
love it, and the more you love it, the greater
will be the attractive force exerted towards its attainment, both
within yourself and outside of you. So, love but one
thing at a time. Don't be a mental Mormon. Chapter fourteen,
The great dynamic forces. You have noticed the difference between
the successful and strong men in any walk of life
and the unsuccessful weak men around them. You are conscious
of the widely differing characteristics of the two classes, but
somehow find it difficult to express just in what the
difference lies. Let us take a look at the matter.
Burton said, the longer I live, the more certain I
am that the great difference between men, the feeble and
the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy and
invincible determination, a purpose, once fixed and then death or victory.
That quality will do anything that can be done in
this world. And no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities, will
make a two legged creature a man without it. I
do not see how the idea could be more clearly
expressed than Burton has spoken. He has put his finger
right in the center of the subject, his eyes seen
into the heart of it. Energy an invincible determination. These
two things will sweep away mighty barriers, and will surmount
the greatest obstacles. And yet they must be used together.
Energy without determination will go to waste. Lots of men
have plenty of energy, they are full to or overflowing
with it, and yet they lack concentration. They lack the
concentrated force that enables them to bring their power to
bear upon the right spot. Energy is not nearly so
rare a thing as many imagine it to be. I
can look around me at any time and pick out
a number of people I know who are full of energy.
Many of them are energy plus, and yet somehow they
do not seem to make any headway. They are wasting
their energy all the time. Now they are filling with
this thing, now, meddling with that. They will take up
some trifling thing of no real interest or importance, and
waste enough energy and nervous force to carry them through
a hard day's work. And yet when they are through,
nothing has been accomplished. Others who have plenty of energy
fail to direct it, by the power of the will,
toward the desired end. Invincible determination. Those are the words.
Do they not thrill you with their power? If you
have something to do, get to work and do it.
Marshal your energy, and then guide and direct it by
your will. Bestow upon it that invincible determination, and you
will do the thing. Everyone has within him a giant will,
But the majority of us are too lazy to use it.
We cannot get ourselves nerved up to the point at
which we can say, truthfully, I will if we can
but pluck up our courage to that point, and will
then pin it in place so that it will not
slip back. We will be able to call into play
that wonderful power the human will. Man as a rule
has but the faintest conception of the power of the will.
But those who have studied along the occult teachings know
that the will is one of the great dynamic forces
of the universe, and if harnessed and directed properly, it
is capable of accomplishing almost miraculous things. Energy and invincible determination.
Aren't they magnificent words. Commit them to memory, Press them
like a die into the wax of your mind, and
they will be a constant inspiration to you in hours
of need. If you can get these words to vibrating
in your being, you will be a giant among pigmies.
Say these words over and over again, and see how
you are filled with new life. See how your blood
will circulate, how your nerves will tingle. Make these words
a part of yourself, and then go forth anew into
the battle of life, encouraged and strengthened. Put them into practice,
energy an invincible determination. Let that be your motto in
your worker day life, and you will be one of
those rare men who are able to do things many
persons are deterred from doing their best by the fact
that they underrate themselves by comparison with the successful ones
of life, or rather overrate the successful ones by comparison
with themselves. One of the curious things noticed by those
who are brought into contact with the people who have
arrived is the fact that these successful people are not extraordinary.
After all. You meet with some great writer, and you
are disappointed to find him very ordinary. Indeed, he does
not converse brilliantly, And in fact, you know a score
of everyday people who seem far more brilliant than this
man who dazzles you by his brightness in his books.
You meet some great statesmen, and he does not seem
nearly so wise as lots of old fellows in your
own village who waste their wisdom upon the desert air.
You meet some great captain of industry, and he does
not give you the impression of the shrewdness so marked
in some little bargain driving trader in your own town.
How is this anyway? Are the reputations of these people
fictitious or what is the trouble? The trouble is this,
you have imagined these people to be made of superior metal,
and are disappointed to find them made of the same
stuff as yourself and those about you. But you ask
wherein does their greatness of achievement lie? Chiefly in this
belief in themselves, and in their inherent power, in their
faculty to concentrate on the work in hand when they
are working, and in their ability to prevent leaks of
power when they are not working. They believe in themselves
and make every effort count your village. Wise man spills
his wisdom on every corner and talks to a lot
of fools, when if he really were wise, he would
save up his wisdom and place it where it would
do some work. The brilliant writer does not waste his
wit upon every corner. In fact, he shuts the drawer
in which he contains his wis and opens it only
when he is ready to concentrate and get down to business.
The captain of industry has no desire to impress you
with his shrewdness and smartness. He never did even when
he was young, while his companions were talking and boasting
and blowing. This future successful financier was sore and would
and say on nothing. The great people of the world.
That is, those who have arrived are not very different
from you, or me or the rest of us. All
of us are about the same at the base. You
have only to meet them to see how very ordinary
they are after all. But don't forget the fact that
they know how to use the material that is in them,
while the rest of the crowd does not, and in
fact even doubts whether the true stuff is there. The
man or woman who gets there usually starts out by
realizing that he or she is not so very different
after all from the successful people that they hear so
much about. This gives them confidence, and the result is
they find out they are able to do things. Then
they learn to keep their mouths closed and to avoid
wasting and dissipating their energy. They store up energy and
concentrated upon the task at hand, while their companions are
scattering their energies in every direction, trying to show off
and let people know how smart they are. The man
or woman who gets there prefers to wait for the
applause that follows deed accomplished, and cares very little for
the praise that attends promises of what we expect to
do someday or an exhibition of smartness without works. One
of the reasons that people who are thrown in with
successful men often manifest success themselves is that they are
able to watch the successful man and sort of catch
the trick of his greatness. They see that he is
an everyday sort of man, but that he thoroughly believes
in himself, and also that he does not waste energy,
but reserves all his force for the actual time tasks
before him. And profiting by example, they start to work
and put the lesson into practice in their own lives. Now,
what is the moral of this talk? Simply this, don't
undervalue yourself or overvalue others. Realize that you are made
of good stuff, and that locked within your mind are
many good things. Then get to work and unfold those
good things and make something out of that good stuff.
Do this by attention to the things before you, and
by giving to each the best that is in you,
knowing that plenty of more good things are in you,
ready for the fresh tasks that will come. Put the
best of yourself into the undertaking on hand, and do
not cheat the present task in favor of some future one.
Your supply is inexhaustible, And don't waste your good stuff
on the crowd of gapers, watchers, and critics who are
standing around watching you work. Save your good stuff for
your job, and don't be in timid much of a
hurry for applause. Save up your good thoughts for copy
if you are a writer, save up your bright schemes
for actual practice, if you are a businessman, save up
your wisdom for occasion, if you are a statesman. And
in each case, avoid the desire to scatter your pearls before,
well before the gaping crowd that wants to be entertained
by a free show. Nothing very high about this teaching, perhaps,
but it is what many of you need very much.
Stop fooling and get down to business. Stop wasting good
raw material, and start to work making something worthwhile. Chapter fifteen,
Claiming your Own. In a recent conversation, I was telling
a woman to pluck up courage and to reach out
for a certain good thing for which she had been
longing for many years, and which at last appeared to
be in sight. I told her that it looked as
if her desire was about to be gratified, that the
law of attraction was bringing it to her. She lacked
faith and kept on repeating, Oh, it's too good to
be true, It's too good for me. She had not
emerged from the worm of the dust stage, and although
she was in sight of the promised land, she refused
to enter it because it was too good for her.
I think I succeeded in putting sufficient ginger into her
to enable her to claim her own. For the last
reports indicate that she is taking possession. But that is
not what I wish to tell you. I want to
call your attention to the fact that nothing is too
good for you, no matter how great the thing may be,
no matter how undeserving you may seem to be, you
are entitled to the best there is, for it is
your direct inheritance. So don't be afraid to ask, demand,
and take. The good things of the world are not
the portion of any favored sons. They belong to all,
but they come only to those who are wise enough
to recognize that the good things are theirs by right,
and who are sufficiently courageous to reach out for them.
Many good things are lost for want of the asking.
Many splendid things are lost to you because of your
feeling that you are unworthy of them. Many great things
are lost to you because you lack the confidence and
courage to demand and take possession of them. None but
the brave deserves the fair, says the old adage, and
the ryal is true in all lines of human effort.
If you keep on repeating that you are unworthy of
the good thing, that it is too good for you,
the law will be apt to take you at your
word and believe what you say. That's the peculiar thing
about the law. It believes what you say. It takes
you in earnest. So beware what you say to it,
for it will be apt to give credence. Say to
it that you are worthy of the best there is,
and there is nothing too good for you, and you
will be likely to have the law take you in
earnest and say, I guess he is right. I'm going
to give him the whole bake shop if he wants it,
his rights, and what's the use of trying to deny
it to him. But if you say, oh, it's too
good for me, the law will probably say, well, I
shouldn't wonder, but that that is so. Surely he ought
to know, and isn't for me to contradict him. And
so it goes, Why should anything be too good for you?
Did you ever stop to think just what you are?
You are a manifestation of the whole thing, and have
a perfect right to all there is, Or, if you
prefer it this way, you are a child of the
infinite and are heir to it all. You are telling
the truth in either statement or both. At any rate,
no matter what you ask, you are merely demanding your own,
And the more in earnest you are about demanding it,
the more confident you are of receiving it. The more
will you use in reaching out for it, the surer
you will be to obtain it. Strong desire, confident, expectation,
courage in action, these things bring to you your own.
But before you put these forces into effect, you must
awaken to a realization that you are merely asking for
your own, and not for something to which you have
no right or claim. So long as there exists in
your mind the last sneaking bit of doubt as to
your right to the things you want, you'll be setting
up a resistance to the operation of the law. You
may demand as vigorously as you please, but if you
will lack the courage to act, if you have a
lingering doubt of your right to the thing you want.
If you persist in regarding the desired thing as if
it belonged to another instead of to yourself, you will
be placing yourself in the position of the covetous or
envious man, or even in the position of the tempted thief.
In such a case, your mind will revolt at proceeding
with the work, for it instinctively will recoil from the
idea of taking what is not your own. The mind
is honest. But when you realize that the best the
universe holds belongs to you as a divine air, and
that there is enough for all without your robbing anyone else,
then the friction is removed and the barrier broken down,
and the law proceeds to do its work. I do
not believe in this humble business. This meek and lowly attitude,
does not appeal to me. There is no sense in
it at all, the idea of making a virtue of
such things, when man is the heir of the universe
and is entitled to whatever he needs for his growth,
happiness and satisfaction. I do not mean that one should
assume a blustering and domineering attitude of mind that is
also absurd, for true strength does not so exhibit itself.
The blusterer is a self confessed weakling. He blusters to
disguise his weakness. The truly strong man is calm, self contained,
and carries with him a consciousness of strength, which renders
unnecessary the bluster and fuss of assumed strength. But get
away from this hypnotism of humility is meek and lowly attitude.
Remember the horrible example of you ry a Heap, and
beware of imitating him. Throw back your head and look
the world square in the face. There's nothing to be
afraid of. The world is apt to be as much
afraid of you as you are of it. Anyway, be
a man or woman and not a crawling thing. And
this applies to your mental attitude as well as to
your outward demeanor. Stop this crawling in your mind. See
yourself as standing erect and facing life without fear, and
you will gradually grow into your ideal. There is nothing
that is too good for you, not a thing. The
best there is is not beginning to be good enough
for you, for there are still better things ahead. The
best gift that the world has to offer is a
mere bauble compared to the great things in the cosmos
that await your coming of age. So don't be afraid
to reach out for these playthings of life. These baubles
are this plane of consciousness. Reach out for them, grab
a whole fistful, play with them until you are tired.
That's what they are made for anyway. They are made
for our expressed use, not to look at, but to
be played with. If you desire help yourself, there's a
whole shopful of these toys awaiting or desire, demand and taking.
Don't be bashful. Don't let me hear any more of
this silly talk about things being too good for you.
Sure you have been like the Emperor's little son, thinking
that the tin soldiers and the toy drum were far
too good for him, and refusing to reach out for them.
But you don't find this trouble with children. As a rule,
they instinctively recognize that nothing is too good for them.
They want all that is in sight to play with,
and they seem to feel that the things are theirs
by right. And that is the condition of mind that
we seek as after the divine adventure must cultivate unless
we become as little children, we cannot enter the Kingdom
of heaven. The things we see around us are the playthings,
the kindergarten of God. Play things which we use in
our game tasks. Help yourself to them, ask for them
without bashfulness. Demand as many as you can make use of.
They are yours. And if you don't see just what
you want, ask for it. There's a big reserved stock
on the shelves and in the closets. Play play, play
to your heart's content. Learn to weave mats, to build
houses with the blocks, to stitch outlines on the squares,
to play the game through and play it well, and
demand all the proper materials for the play. Don't be bashful.
There's enough to go round. But remember this. While all
this be true, the best things are still only game things. Toys, blocks, mats, cubes,
and all the rest. Useful, most useful for the learning
of the lessons, pleasant, most pleasant with which to play,
and desirable, most desirable for these purposes. Get all the
fun and profit out of the use of things that
is possible. Throw yourself heartily into the game and play
it out. It is good. But here's the thing to remember.
Never lose sight of the fact that these good things
are but playthings, part of the game. For you must
be perfectly willing to lay them aside when the time
comes to pass into the next class, and not cry
and mourn because you must leave your playthings behind you.
Do not allow yourself to become unduly attached to them.
They are for your use and pleasure, but are not
a part of you, not essential to your happiness in
the next stage. Despise them not because of their lack
of reality. They are great things relatively, and you may
as well have all the fun out of them that
you can. Don't be a spiritual prig, standing aside and
refusing to join in the game. But do not tie
yourself to them. They are good to use and play with,
but not good enough to use you and to make
you a plaything. Don't let the toys turn the tables
on you. This is the difference between the master of
circumstances and the slave of circumstances. The slave thinks that
these playthings are real and that he is not good
enough to have them. He gets only a few toys
because he is afraid to ask for more, and he
misses most of the fun and then, considering the toys
to be real, and not realizing that there are plenty
more where these came from. He attaches himself to the
little trinkets that have come his way and allows himself
to be made a slave of them. He is afraid
that they may be taken away from him, and he
is afraid to toddle across the floor and help himself
to the others. The Master knows that all are his
for the asking. He demands that which he needs from
day to day, and does not worry about overloading himself,
for he knows that there are lots more and that
he cannot be cheated out of them. He plays and
plays well and has a good time. I'm in the play,
and he learns his kindergarten lessons in the playing. But
he does not become too attached to his toys. He
is willing to fling away the worn out toys and
reach out for a new one. And when he is
called into the next room for promotion, he drops on
the floor the worn out toys of the day, and
with glistening eyes and confident attitude of mind, marches into
the next room, into the great unknown, with a smile
on his face. He is not afraid, for he hears
the voice of the teacher and knows that she is
there waiting for him in that next great room. Chapter sixteen,
Law not chance. Some time ago I was talking to
a man about the attractive power of thought. He said
that he did not believe that thought could attract anything
to him, and that it was all a matter of luck.
He had found. He said that ill luck relentlessly pursued him,
and that everything he touched went wrong. Who had always
had and always would, and he had grown to expect it.
When he undertook a new thing, he knew beforehand that
it would go wrong, and that no good would come
of it. Oh, no, there wasn't anything in the theory
of attractive thought. So far as he could see. It
was all a matter of luck. This man failed to
see that by his own confession he was giving a
most convincing argument in favor of the law of attraction.
He was testifying that he was always expecting things to
go wrong, and that they always came about as he expected.
He was a magnificent illustration of the law of attraction.
But he didn't know it, and no argument seemed to
make the matter clear to him he was up against
it and was no way out of it. He always
expected the ill luck, and every occurrence proved that he
was right, and that the mental science position was all nonsense.
There are many people who seemed to think that the
only way in which the law of attraction operates is
when one wishes hard, strong, and steady. They do not
seem to realize that a strong belief is as efficacious
as a strong wish. The successful man believes in himself
and his ultimate success, and paying no attention to little setbacks, stumbles,
tumbles and slips, presses on eagerly to the goal, believing
all the time that he will get there. His views
and aims may alter as he progresses, and he may
change his plans or have them changed for him, but
all the time he knows in his heart that he
will eventually get there. He is not steadily wishing he
may get there. He simply feels and believes it, and
thereby sets to operation the strongest forces known in the
world of thought. The man who just as steadily believes
he is going to fail, will invariably fail. How could
he help it? There is no special miracle about it.
Everything he does thinks and says, is tinctured with the
thought of failure. Other people catch his spirit and fail
to trust him him or his ability, which encourages he
in turn sets down as but other exhibitions of his
ill luck, instead of ascribing them to his belief and
expectation of failure. He is suggesting failure to himself all
the time, and he invariably takes on the effect of
the auto suggestion. Then again, he, by his negative thoughts,
shuts up that portion of the mind from which should
come the ideas and plans conducive to success, and which
do come to the man who is expecting success because
he believes in it. A state of discouragement is not
the one in which bright ideas come to us. It
is only when we are enthused and hopeful that our
minds work out the bright ideas which we may turn
to account. Men instinctively feel the atmosphere of failure hovering
around certain of their fellows, and on the other hand,
recognize something about others which leads them to say, when
they hear of a temporary mishap befalling such a one, Oh,
he'll come out all right. Somehow, You can't down him.
It is the atmosphere caused by the prevailing mental attitude.
Clear up your mental atmosphere. There is no such thing
as chance. Law maintains everywhere, and all that happens happens
because of the operation of law. You cannot name the
simplest thing that ever occurred by chance. Try it, and
then run the thing down to a final analysis, and
you will see it as the result of law. It
is as plain as mathematics, plan and purpose, cause and effect.
From the movements of worlds to the growth of the
grain of mustard seed, all the result of law. The
fall of the stone down the mountain side is not
a chance. Forces which had been in operation for centuries
caused it, and back of that cause or other causes,
and so on, until the causeless cause is reached and
life is not the result of chance. The law is
here too. The law is in full operation, whether you
know it or not, whether you believe in it or not.
You may be the ignorant object upon which the law
operates and bring yourself all sorts of trouble because of
your ignorance of or opposition to the law. Or you
may fall in with the operation to the law, get
into its current as it were, and life will seem
a far different thing to you. You cannot get outside
of the law by refusing to have anything to do
with it. You are at liberty to oppose it and
produce all the friction you wish to. It doesn't hurt
the law, and you may keep it up until you
learn your lesson the law of thought. Attraction is one
name for the law, or rather for one manifestation of it. Again,
I say your thoughts are real things. They go forth
from you in all directions, combining with thoughts of like kind,
opposing thoughts of a different character, forming combinations, going where
they are attracted, flying away from thought centers, opposing them.
And your mind attracts the thought of others which have
been sent out by them, consciously or unconsciously. But it
attracts only those thoughts which are in harmony with its own.
Like attracts like, and opposites repel opposites. In a world
of thought, if you set your mind to the keynote
of courage, confidence, strength, and success, you attract yourself thoughts
of like nature, people of like nature, things that fit
in the mental tune. Your prevailing thought or mood determines
that which is to be drawn toward you. Picks out
your mental bedfellow. You are today setting into motion thought
currents which will in time attract toward you thoughts, people,
and conditions in harmony with the predominant note of your thought.
Your thought will mingle with that of others of like nature.
Un mind, and you will be attracted toward each other,
and will surely come together with a common purpose sooner
or later, unless one or the other of you should
change the current of his thoughts. Fall in with the
operations of the law, make it a part of yourself.
Get into its currents. Maintain your poise. Set your mind
to the keynote of courage, confidence, and success. Get in
touch with all the thoughts of that kind that are
emanating every hour from hundreds of minds. Get the best
that is to be had in the thought world. The
best is there, so be satisfied with nothing less. Get
into partnership with good minds. Get into the right vibrations.
You must be tired of being tossed about by the
operations of the law. Get into harmony with it.