CONTENTS
Chapter 1 – P-R-A-I-S-E
Chapter 2 – THE KINGDOM OF EXPANSION
Chapter 3 – AS A MAN THINKETH
Chapter 4 – THE MASTER OF YOUR FATE
Chapter 5 – THE MASTER MIND
Chapter 1 – P-R-A-I-S-E
DID YOU EVER NOTICE that if you leave off the “P” from the word Praise, what you have left is “Raise”?
That is no mere accident, for wise men have realized for thousands of years that to praise is to raise the spirits and increase the power of the one praised. In the same way, praise of God and thankfulness for His gifts raises the spirits of the one who sings those praises to the heights of rare accomplishment.
Just as praise and thanksgiving freed Paul and Silas from the chains of the dungeon, so can they free you from worry and fear and the dungeons of dark despair. “I will sing unto Jehovah,” sang the Psalmist of old, “because He hath dealt bountifully with me.” And if we would have Him deal bountifully with us, it behooves us to praise and be thankful for the good we now have, no matter how small that good may seem to be.
“The righteous doth sing and rejoice,” we are told in the Scriptures. And the Hebrew word used for “sing” means “to sing out loud, even to shout for joy.” To sing with joy is one of the long-neglected truths of POWER. “The Sons of God shouted for joy.”
The Kingdom of Heaven is the Kingdom of Expansion, and the way to expand what we have is through praise and joy and thanksgiving. Seldom indeed in the Bible do you find that God provides supply out of thin air. Almost always He requires the recipients of His bounty to start with what they have. The widow with the oil and meal, that other widow with a little oil, the feeding of the multitudes with the loaves and fishes, and scores of other cases, all started with the supply in hand. God expanded what they had. And God will expand what you have, if you rightly use the power of praise and thanksgiving.
But mere expansion is not enough. You might expand all the water in the world into steam, and get no good from it—if you had no engine in which to use the steam. You must have a purpose in mind if you are to get the utmost of good from your expansion. You must set a goal. You must plan the form in which that expanded energy is to make itself manifest. It can be in your body, in your circumstances, in your surroundings—in anything of good you may desire.
Some years ago the Journal of Education had a story that expressed this idea clearly. “There was once a prince,” it read, “who had a crooked back. He could never stand straight up like even the lowest of his subjects. Because he was a very proud prince, his crooked back caused him a great deal of mental suffering.
“One day he called before him the most skillful sculptor in his kingdom and said to him: ‘Make me a noble statue of myself, true to my likeness in every detail, with this exception—make this statue with a straight back. I wish to see myself as I might have been.’
“For long months the sculptor worked, hewing the marble carefully into the likeness of the prince, and at last the work was done, and the sculptor went before the prince and said: ‘The statue is finished; where shall I set it up?’ One of the courtiers called out: ‘Set it before the castle gate where all can see it,’ but the prince smiled sadly and shook his head. ‘Rather,’ said he, ‘place it in a secret nook in the palace garden where only I shall see it.’
“The statue was placed as the prince ordered, and promptly forgotten by the world, but every morning and every noon and every evening, the prince stole quietly away to where it stood and looked long upon it, noting the straight back and the uplifted head and the noble brow. And each time he gazed, something seemed to go out of the statue and into him, tingling in his blood and throbbing in his heart.
“The days passed into months and the months into years; then strange rumors began to spread throughout the land. Said one: ‘The prince’s back is no longer crooked or my eyes deceive me.’ Said another: ‘Our prince has the high look of a mighty man.’ And these rumors came to the prince, and he listened with a queer smile.
“Then went he out into the garden to where the statue stood and behold, it was just as the people said, his back had become straight as the statue’s, his head had the same noble bearing; he was, in fact, the noble man his statue proclaimed him to he.”
2500 years ago, in the Golden Age of Athens, when its culture led the world, Grecian mothers surrounded themselves with beautiful statues that they might bring forth perfect children and that the children in turn might develop into perfect men and women.
Eleven months from now, YOU will have an entirely new body, inside and out. Not a single cell, not a single bit of tissue that is now in you will be there then. What changes do you want made in that new body? What improvements?
Then start right now getting that new model clearly in mind. Buy yourself a scrap book. Cut from the magazines a picture of the finest figure of a man or woman that you can find, and paste it on page one. Cut out other pictures, that show clearly different parts of your body that need developing or perfecting, and paste them on other pages. Then cut pictures of people doing the sort of things you would love to do—dancing, swimming, riding horseback, rowing, fishing, playing golf or tennis, anything you like—and paste them on different pages of your scrap book.
At the top and bottom of each page, or alongside the pictures, put such reminders and affirmations as these:
“Father God, I thank Thee for my glorious strength, my abiding health, my tireless energy,”
“Vitalize Thy perfect image in me in perfect form.”
“I am strong in the Lord and the power of His might.”
“God made me in His own image. He is my strength and power. He maketh my way perfect. The joy of the Lord is my strength.”
“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”
“Divine Love protects and sustains me. I am the open channel
through which the healing currents of life are now flowing. God is my life.
God is my health. In God is my trust.”
Under a picture showing someone with a splendid chest, taking breathing exercises, put—
“The Spirit of the Lord hath made me, and the breath of the almighty giveth me life.”
Under one bathing—
“Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.”
Under a picture of the eyes—
“Open thou mine eyes, that in Thy light I may see the light.”
Or, if your eyes are weak or troublesome, put—
“Jehovah openeth the eyes of the blind. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. I see God in my eyes, in their perfect life and strength and wholeness. If thou can’st believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. According to thy faith be it done unto you.”
Under picture at a well-filled table—
“Thou shalt eat thy bread with joy.”
Under sleep
“They that rest in the Lord shall renew their strength like the eagle. They shall walk and not faint, they shall run and not be weary. Thy Spirit strengthens both my soul and my body, and I rest in peace of wholeness and health.”
Under vigorous, happy, healthy older people—
“As my days, so shall my strength be. Behold, all things are becoming new. Thou shall make me full of joy in Thy presence. Passing years have no effect upon my spiritual body. I am alive in Jesus Christ forever. I am a tower of strengh and stab^ity in the realization that God is my health. God’s life is constant, unbroken, eternal. I am quickened in His consciousness of life. His constant power and strength sustain me and I am healed. I AM a perfect idea of God and all of life is with me now and always.”
A long time ago, Epictetus said: “God has delivered YOU to YOUR care, and this is what He says to you— ‘I have no fitter to trust than YOU. Preserve this body for me just as it is by nature; modest, beautiful, faithful, noble, tranquil.’
You will find many affirmations to paste in your scrap book. Use any and all that seem helpful. But that saying of Epictetus is a good one to paste on the last page—a good one to bear always in mind. “God has delivered you to your care.” And God gave you dominion. So think of yourself as well and strong. Think of your body as spiritual substance that is not subject to the ills of the flesh. Think of it as constantly changing, continually GROWING into the perfect image that you are holding before it.
The Kingdom of Heaven is the Kingdom of Expansion. If you have but a single perfect cell in your whole body, you can expand that cell into a perfect body, provided only that you hold before it the image of health and strength—not of sickness; provided only that you BELIEVE! “God made man but little lower than the Angels.”
“Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”
For your Prosperity and Abundant Supply Scrap Book, you cannot do better than start with that line from the Lord’s Prayer—”Give us this day our daily bread.”
Get a picture of a horn of plenty—a cornucopia— with all manner of good things pouring out of it, and paste it on the first page of your Scrap Book. Line the page with pictures of sparrows and lilies of the field, to remind you of Jesus’ promise, and then put at the bottom of the page something like this :
“O God, beginning now I shall forever LET Thy Spirit Infinite become the sole dctator of my soul; and I shall never more take anxious thought of anything, but grow as the Klies grow, in peace and power, so that I shall have all I need, forevermore.”
The next page, I’d head with the line—”I can have what I want—if I plant it.” Under it, paste pictures of farmers or gardeners planting seed, only take a pen or pencil and change those seeds into $$$. Under these pictures, put—”The riches of the Spirit now fill my mind and affairs. I think prosperity, I talk prosperity and I know that prosperity and success are mine.”
On other pages, show pictures of growing grain or other plants, with $$$ at the top instead of the usual grain or fruit. Use such affirmations as— “God is my inexhaustible and omnipotent source of abundant supply.” “I accept the will of God, which is abundant prosperity for me.” If I continue to desire you, I shall have you, because I trust in God for all things I desire.”
Then on succeeding pages, show pictures of great piles of money—bags of money, piles of paper money and currency all around the pages, and pictures of yourself pasted in the center, surrounded by riches. If you can find pictures of men digging up treasure hoards, put them in. Put in all kinds of pictures that imply riches and prosperity. Put in pictures of the sort of surroundings you will have, when you have manifested the riches you desire. Get pictures of a beautiful home—the home of your dreams. Show if possible, each room as you would have it furnished. Show the outside, with a wide driveway, bordered by a beautiful lawn, shrubbery around the house, trees in the background, the kind of car you would like to own drawn up before the house. Show even the wardrobes of fine clothes you would have, show horses or bicycles or whatnot for the children, show the flowers in your garden.
“When I got the Lessons of The God in You,” wrote Mrs. Caroline Kroll of Indianapolis, in December, 1939. “I had only $12.00 a month. Now I have a nice home and everything is paid for. I am so happy.” Mrs. Kroll had written us in the fall of 1937 expressing her great desire for a home, and we suggested to her this Treasure Mapping method. She says in her last letter—”I never faltered in my home making, and tonight I am sitting in a good home of my own and never was any happier in my youth.”
Remember, the first step in supplying a need is to know that it IS already supplied in the Mind of God. God has already given you all of good. It is yours for the taking, and the most perfect prayer is the deep realization that your need is already supplied. You don’t have to waste energy wondering about the supply. All you have to do is to focus your energy upon being one with it.
Your desires are like acorns—visions of the mighty oaks they can grow to be. What you desire is and always has been yours. What man can conceive, man can achieve. It is the eye that makes the horizon. No man ever bettered his position by limiting himself in his own mind to the one he had. No man ever made a success of his business by thinking failure. Every success is achieved first in your own thoughts. You must work first on yourself, because all trouble, limitation and the like are states of consciousness. Change your thought and you change all. You get the conditions that belong to your consciousness. As Emerson put it—”No man was ever ridden down or talked down by anything but himself.”
Look within yourself for the source of all power. I AM the great power of God expressing as ME. I AM the great abundance for all my needs and a surplus to spare. That to which I give my attention reveals itself. So give your attention to the things you want! Fill your Scrap Book with pictures of them. Put over and under and around them such affimations as these:
“God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the Power that worketh in us. I rejoice in the bounty of God, constantly manifesting to meet my every need.”
“If ye abide in Me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you. For herein is the Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.” “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before you ask Him. Fear not, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. All that the Father hath is yours, and you are in all ways prospered.”
“I will give thee hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I am the God of Israel.” “If thou return to the Almightly, then shall thou lay up gold as dust, and the gold of Ophir as the stones of the brooks.” “I will sing unto Jehovah, because He hath dealt bountifully with me.”
Remember that—”According to thy faith be it done unto you. “So believe that you RECEIVE! If your beliefs are all for the future, you will get them in the distant future but never NOW. You will never quite catch up with them. “Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation.” Realize that all these good things are NOW coming into manifestation in your life. Bless and thank God for them NOW.
“Instead of pleacdng, ‘God bless me,’
And making such a weary fuss,
How much better off we’d be
If we would smile awhe and say,
I thank you, God, for blessing us today.’
“I nstead of begging, ‘God give me
And mine the things which our hearts crave,’
How much happier we’d be
If we would laugh with life, and say,
‘We thank you, God, for what we have today.’ ”
—MARION B. SHOEN
“But what shall we do about pressing debts?” many will ask. First, make a list of all of them. Then, thank God for having sent such trustful people to your aid, thank Him for the confidence they have shown in you. Next, see yourself in your mind’s eye going the rounds of all your creditors, paying them in full. See their thankful, smiling faces. Hear yourself expressing to them your appreciation of their courtesy and forbearance, hear them telling you that they were glad to be of help, will be glad to extend the same credit to you in the future. Get pictures of people paying money over to merchants, paste in your own features over those of the debtors, and under them put such affirmations as these:
“Divine Love prospers all of us together NOW. God is our supply, through each of us to all, and through all of us to each. I speak for all of us the word that multiplies money to all of us. And my word accomplishes that whereunto I send it. In God is my trust.”
“When I worry, I am not trusting God. When I trust God, I have nothing to worry about.”
“I put the payment of these debts lovingly in the hands of the Father with a child-like trust. That which is for my highest good will come to me.”
Then do your part by using some of whatever money you receive to pay these just debts, and as you pay out the money, bless it in some such wise as this: “I bless thee . . . and be thou a blessing! As I pay out this money, I bless it. May it enrich everyone who touches it. The value of this substance I hold in my hand is this day magnified, for I perceive that it is truly a symbol of my heavenly Father’s inexhaustible riches. Go forth, increase, multiply and bring forth fruit and hundredfold!”
Here is a prayer suggested by R. A. D., in a recent issue of Nautilus, to be used in connection with your list of debts:
“Father, I thank Thee that thou hast opened the way for me to pay every Ml on this list, sending the money for each one before it is due. I pace this expense sheet absolutely and unconditionally in Thy hands, and from the depths of a rich consciousness, I thank and praise Thee that the money for each separate item already is provided, awaking only my claim to bring it into evidence. The gory of Thy radiance shining before me, Infinite Father, has opened the way for my unfading prosperity and for a success greater than I ever before have experienced. I put from me every thought of limitations or lack and go free to have an abundance of all good.”
The right job is the most pressing problem for many people. And you can help yourself or others to that right work through “Treasure Mapping” in the same way that you can bring riches or health or any other good thing.
The first essential, of course, is to know what you want. What kind of work would you most like to do? What are you best fitted for? What is your ultimate ambition? Get a Scrap Book and paste in it first a picture of yourself. After deciding on the line of work you want to devote yourself to, take inventory of yourself and think in what position you are now fitted to start. Then get a picture from the magazines of someone working in that position, paste in in your Scrap Book, and if you have a snap-shot of yourself that you can substitute for the face in the picture, do so.
Decide then what is the next position you will be fitted for in the line of work you have adopted, and paste a picture of someone in that position on the next page of your Scrap Book. Fill succeeding pages with logical steps in your progress, right on up to the very top. When you feel that your work will entitle you to a private office, paste in a picture of someone representing yourself seated at a desk in a sumptuously furnished office, with their title lettered on the door or on the side of the desk, and then letter in your name over the title.
And remember, no one ever got a good job by limiting themselves mentally to a poor one. Admit to yourself that you are good. Then let others find it out by the service you give. That is the key to any door you wish to unlock. Yourself PLUS is your fortune. Your affairs PLUS is success.
Paste over and under and around your pictures such affirmations as these: “God is with me in all that I do.” “If God be for you, who can be against you?” “Know ye not that ye are Gods, sons of the Most High?” What should your situation be like? What is it like in the Divine Mind, in the Eternal Plan?
“Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before you ask Him. Fear not, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. All that the Father has is yours, and you are in all ways prospered.” “If ye abide in Me and My words abide unto you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you. For herein is the Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.” “With good will, doing service as to the Lord and not to man.” “Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”
The same principles that help you to a better position will help you to make your business grow and prosper, when you have a business of your own. Many a man and woman has started with practically nothing, and built a fortune, simply by taking God into partnership with them.
Start your Scrap Book with a picture of yourself and of your business as it is now. Then on each succeeding page, show it growing bigger and better. Picture the service you want to give your customers. Picture thousands of them taking advantage of that service. Picture yourself and your helpers serving ever greater numbers, picture your product in the hands of more and more users, picture its manufacture in great volume, its shipping, its sale, everything you can connected with it. And let every picture show progress, growth, expansion. See yourself serving the world.
Under those pictures, put inspiring affirmations. “I am a partner and coworker with God.” It is the purpose of Universal Mind to see people prosper, that they may express more of life, love, happiness and understanding, thus reflecting more of God. Our product is the connecting link between this demand and God’s supply. The need is expanding continually and we have the will and the intelligence to see and meet it. Therefore, there is a continually growing demand for our product, that increases as I realize the spiritual significance of my work and make better products for my customers. It is in my power to make my customers better qualified, through the equipment that I provide, for prosperity and success. I delight in that power. I increase that power by using it for the honor, glory and pleasure of my customers and myself.”
“Father, this business has to be good, so You handle it for me. I put it and all my affairs lovingly in Your hands, with a child-like faith. That which is for my highest good will come to me. One on God’s side is a majority, and I am together with You, so all things are working together for my good and I am working with them in the wisdom and the power of the Spirit.”
“God is in control. God is Spirit, good omnipotent. Apart from Him, there is no overcoming power. God is life, love and peace. God’s will now fulfilled in me is abundant work for our business.”
“The Spirit that multiplied the loaves and fishes for Jesus increases my substance, and I manifest prosperity.”
But remember to give “good measure” to all, customers and coworkers alike, for “All who joy would win must share it—Happiness was born a twin.”
Many who have no business to worry about have homes or pieces of property or whatnot that they wish to sell, and at times this is a problem.
Yet it is a problem that lends itself to the same methods outlined above, as you can judge from the following letter dated May 15th, 1940, from one of the subscribers to The God in You:
“When I received Robert Collier’s Course The God in You, we were in debt and sometimes wondered what the next meal was to be, even though we owned our cottage and three lots. It seemed we couldn’t get a buyer, nor could we even borrow on the property, even though it was clear, as it was in a run-down neighborhood.
“Since reading the Course, we have sold all St. Louis County property and purchased this 96-acre farm at Belle, paying cash for it and clearing ourselves of debt, as we sold most of the property for cash, a thing we could not have done without the help of The God in You. I believe we are about to see another manifestation of God’s goodness as we have deposits under our ground which may indeed show God’s goodness through riches to us.”
The first essential is to BLESS the property you wish to sell. Know that it is a perfect image in the Divine Mind, made for the express purpose of manifesting good to someone, and declare that it is now sold to the right party at the right price.
Paste a picture of it in your Scrap Book. Think of every possibility for its development, and paste such pictures in your book, too. Show pictures of people looking at similar properties, of a sale being made, of the developments that will take place on it.
L. C. B. told in a recent issue of Unity how she put her house “lovingly in the hands of the Father”, then used this affirmation: “You, Christ, will find for us the perfect purchasers, who will love our home as we have loved it and recognize it for theirs and have sufficient cash to pay for it and have it NOW. Only through You are we fully aware of our omnipresent good.” Within a short time, the article states, the house was sold for cash, and at their own price!
In Nautilus sometime ago, there was a similar story, the affirmation used in that case being the following: “God’s loving Presence in all of us brings the right buyer NOW, who will pay the right price for the property and who will make money on the deal, while at the same time I will make money, God’s money, in the selling. Divine Love now multiplies God’s money and His Good to both buyer and seller, so that all shall be satisfied. All things now work together for good to me and to the new buyer of this property. We are the open channels through which Divine Love is now flowing to this property and through it to all the world. All the barriers are now dissolved by Divine Love and my customer comes quickly and gloriously. God is our prosperity here and now. In God I trust and I know that all things work together to manifest the good we desire.”
Whatever your problem, whatever your difficulty, you can get guidance if you will seek it. Give the facts to the God in You, ask Him for the solution, then leave the problem with Him and FORGET it in the serene confidence that He can and will find the answer. Never force the issue. Have faith in that God in You, and wait for a leading. “And thine ear shall hear a voice behind thee saying, this is the path; walk ye in it.”
Our physical senses are able to discern only such objects as are on the same or a lower material plane than ourselves. Our ears, for instance, are attuned to but a few octaves of sound. Those of higher or lower wave lengths are inaudible to us. Yet the radio has taught us that all about us are sounds of music, of laughter, of drama and instruction.
The same is true with our eyes. We see only those things that are on the median light waves. The air may be full of television pictures, yet with our unaided eyes, we get none of them. Is it therefore so hard to believe that when the servant of the Prophet Elisha was fearful, because of the enemies all around, Elisha prayed and said —”Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw; And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”
May not the air around you be just as full of God’s angels? May not Elisha’s advice be just as good today— “Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.”
The Psalmist of old testified, you remember—”I have been young, and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.”
Paste in your Scrap Book some of those old Biblical pictures of Angels guiding the children of God, of Guardian Angels, and over and under them put such affirmations as these: “God goes before me and opens the way.” “Infinite Wisdom tells me just what to do.” “I thank you, God, that you are here with us, and no matter what happens, we are all right.” “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day. He will cover thee with his pinions, and under his wings shalt thou take refuge.” Grace Crowell had a beautiful little poem along these lines in Unity Magazine:
“So often through God’s Hoy Book there shines
Some dear-cut word, some strong and simple phrase
That gleams like diamonds gathered from deep mines,
Set polished there to light our earthly days;
‘And God was with, ,he lad.’ The words, how brief,
And yet what vital meaning in their sound,
As spoken of that ancient child of grief
Once left to die upon the hot, parched ground.
” ‘And God was with the lad,’ One need not look
For further information; all is tod.
No gifted hand on earth could pen a book
Of strange biography that would unfold
With clearer words, nor could it tell as well
The God-companioned life of Ishmael.”
Such affirmations cannot help but bring you peace and serenity. In Esquire Magazine some time ago there was an article telling about the fear-scent the body gives off, which is exceedingly irritating to any animal that senses it. “It is this fear-scent,” said the article, “which causes dogs to attack people who have not molested them. A dog will respond quickly both in friendship and in training when he is approached without fear, but no one can fool him for a minute with a fearless exterior concealing a quaking heart, for the fear-scent is there.
“It is usually the fear that a canoe will tip over that causes the occupant to move suddenly in the wrong direction and thereby upset it. The fear of drowning, when suddenly thrown into the water, causes one to struggle frantically, and incidentally force themselves under. It is an interesting scientific fact that a baby, until 24 hours old, can swim. Beyond that, it starts to realize fear and will sink. Fear is really the mental hazard of crossing your bridges before you come to them.”
Is it not likely that the strong odor of our “fear-scent” registers on all we come in contact with, even though it be but subconsciously with human beings? Certain it is that when we approach people fearfully, we seem to repel them, for we seldom make a favorable impression, seldom get from them what we want.
The remedy? To BLESS the Divinity in all we come in contact with. You remember how often Jesus used the greeting—”Peace!” “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.” And to the wind and waves, He bade— “Peace! Be still.” And immediately the storm abated. “Acquaint now thyself with God and be at peace.”
When trouble threatens in your home or your business, bless all concerned and mentally affirm—”Peace! The love of God is at work here. All of my forces are peaceful and harmonious. There is no resistance in me against the Spirit of God’s peaceful life. Every anxious thought is stilled. Thy mighty confidence and Thy peace enfold me. The Spirit of God fills my mind, and abundance is everywhere manifest.” Then go up to the thing you fear, confidently, serenely. Or if it is something you must do, do it! Once you have lost the fear of it, you will find It easy.
Evil? There is really no such thing. It is merely the lack of Good. Summon the Good and the evil vanishes. The same is true of enemies. Summon love for them, salute the Divinity in them and bless them, and you will find hate turned to love. Say mentally to the Divinity in those who appear to be your enemies—”I recognize you. You can’t disguise yourself. You are a radiant child of God. God’s creations are all excellent. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ. Because you are a child of God, you speak the truth and you are ever honest, just and harmonious. My world is filled with splendid people, and I love them all.”
Be noble, and the nobleness that lies in other men, sleeping but never dead, will rise in majesty to meet thine own. Trust men, and they will be true to you. Treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.
Love overcometh, for all motion is cyclic. It circulates to the limits of its possibilities and then returns to its starting point. Thus any unselfish expenditure of energy returns to you laden with gifts. Any unselfish act done for another’s benefit is giving part of yourself. It is an outward flow of power that completes its cycle and returns laden with energy.
The thoughts that we send forth always return with a harvest of their kind. That which we put into the thought comes back into our life. For our every thought there is a response, a return of the pendulum that we have started swinging. It is Emerson’s Law of Compensation.
So you can see the wisdom in the dictum—”Into whatsoever house ye enter, first say—’Peace be to this house!’ ”
But do more than bless those you come in contact with. Act the part. Think kindly of them as well.
“Believe not each accusing tongue,
As most weak people do;
But still believe that story wrong
Which ought not to be true.”
It is as easy to add, you know, as it is to subtract. Love adds. Fear and hatred subtract. You can reinforce your efforts with all the universe through love, as easily as you can separate yourself from everyone through hatred and fear.
Remember, evil is usually in the eye of the beholder. There is an old poem that depicts this graphically:
“Mistress Polly Wittenhouse Lived on Whetstone Alley,
And she was like an angel To Kttle orphan Sally,
And she was like a harlot To the lass across the way,
A ‘good-un’ to the slavey Who made her bed each day.
And she was like a siren With the devil in her eye
To any roving sailor man As he was passing by.
“So (stress Polly Wittenhouse Was either good or bad,
According to the need or greed Each of her judges had,
According as her living Threw a shadow on their own.
The saiiors flung her kisses And the lass she cast a stone.
And Saly and the slavery They prayed for her each night,
And ali of them that judged her Knew that they judged her right.”
A Scrap Book on Love is probably the most valuable one you can make. Put in it pictures of all your friends, all those you would have for friends. Paste in it pictures of the home of your dreams, of each separate room in it, of the furnishings, of everything about it.
Put in it every motto of peace and love and happiness you can find. Put in it pictures of children and toys and fireside scenes, dinners and parties and all the intimate happy things you can think of. Love that house and everything about it. Live in it mentally. Believe in it, and before long you will find that you ARE in it in actuality.
“God lights the way, no more we grope
Nor stumble on in troubled hope.
We sow no seeds of care or strife,
But those of love and joy and life.
No more we strive to pan our lot,
The Father f s our cup, unsought.”
Sow the seeds in your Scrap Book and in your life of love and joy and happiness, then leave it to the Father to provide the means of making these seeds grow and bear fruit. “I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gaveth the increase.”
Remember, the I AM in you is your part of Divinity. Some sage put it— “Whatever the Creator is, I AM.” How often have you said—”I AM poor,
I AM sick, I AM ignorant, I AM weak”—and thus fastened these evils upon yourself? You acknowledged a lack of something. What can you build with minus quantities? Only emptiness, void.
Reverse all that. Whenever you say “I AM”, whenever you thus call upon the God in You, make it something you WANT. “I AM rich. I AM powerful. I AM well and whole and strong. I AM happy. I AM perfect in every way.”
Make an I AM Scrap Book, with your picture on the first page, then pictures of supermen or genii or whatever your idea of power may be scattered throughout the pages of the book. Put in it pictures of all the things you would like to be and do. And fill it with such affirmations as these :
“The Spirit of Prosperity fills my mind and overflows into my affairs. God is my perfect will; through me it is done.” “There is only one Presence and one Power in my life—God, the Good Omnipotent. God is my inexhaustible source of abundant supply. The riches of the Spirit now fill my mind and affairs. I think prosperity. I talk prosperity, and I know that prosperity and success are mine.”
“If we but touch the garment’s hem,
Comes power surging through.
Try—pay the part—stretch out your hand,
Then quiet—wait what comes to you.”
God gave man power and dominion over all that is below him. “I said— Ye are Gods, and all of you Sons of the Most High.” “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the Sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.”
Will YOU receive Him? Will you believe in and accept the power He offers you? “God is able to do abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the Power that worketh in us.” Will you accept His Divine Sonship? Will you BE the God-man you were intended to be? Then cast off all fear of debt and lack and sickness and evil. Live in the world of love and plenty that was intended for you. Use the God-given power that is yours to first visualize the things you want—”In the beginning was the Word”, the mental image, you remember—and then bring those mental images into actuality through your faith and your work.
Treasure Maps help to re-educate your mind, help you to visualize and hold in thought the images you wish to create. But visualizing and asking God’s guidance is only half the battle. The other half is to make your start, to dig in and DO the first thing necessary towards bringing your desires into actuality.
The Kingdom of Heaven is the Kingdom of Expansion, but there must be something to expand. You can start a house with a single brick. You can start a fortune with a single dollar. But there must be that brick or that dollar or that first step to put your leaven into before you can make it expand and grow into the perfect structure of your dreams. So do the thing, whatever it may be, that is necessary to your start. Make your picture, draw your Treasure Map, then take the first step that may he necessary towards bringing it into actuality. To begin is to be half done. You will be amazed how quickly you will reach your goal.
“To every man God gives a gift tonight;
To king and peasant and to you and me:
A shining year, clean, white, as crystal clear
As tropic pools or stars above the sea.
“Oh, ,et us promise all the coming days
To keep them pure, to keep them ever white!
As, heaven born, one comes to us each morn,
God, help us use it wisely in Thy sight.
“Whatever task, whatever joy be ours
Throughout the year that now has scarce begun,
Let us steadfastiy claim in His own name
The promised presence of the Holy One.”
—- BERTHA M. RUSSELL
Chapter 2 – THE KINGDOM OF EXPANSION
HERE IS A SECRET of riches and success that has been buried 2,000 years deep.
Since time began, mankind bas been searching for this secret. It has been found—and lost again—a score of times. The Ancients of all races have had some inkling of it, as is proven by the folktales and legends that have come down to us, like the story of Aladdin and his wonderful lamp, or Ali Baba and his “Open Sesame” to the treasure trove.
Every nation has such legends. Every nation has had its Wise Men, its men of genius and vision who glimpsed the truth that is buried in these old folktales and who understood at least something of how it works.
But it remained for Jesus to re-discover this secret in its entirety and then to show us clearly, step by step, how we might use it to bring us anything of good we might desire.
Make no mistake about this: The miracles of Jesus were not something super-natural that could be performed only by Him, else how could He have picked seventy disciples—ordinary men, uneducated, untaught, fishermen, farmers, tax-gatherers and the like—and sent them out two by two to perform miracles and wonders second only to His own so that they returned to Him with joy, saying, “Lord, even the devils are subject to us through Thy name.” How could He have assured us— “The things that I do shall ye do also, and greater things than these shall ye do.” The miracles of Jesus were divinely NATURAL. Instead of being departures from natural law, they were demonstrations of what the law will do for you—if you understand how to use it!
God does not deal in exceptions. Every force in Nature works along definite, logical lines, in accord with certain principles. These forces will work for anyone who possesses the key to their use, just as Aladdin’s fabled Genie would respond to the call of anyone who rubbed the magic lamp. They can be neglected and allowed to lie idle, they can be used for good or evil, but the laws themselves do not change. It is merely the methods of using them that change.
An airplane or an automobile would have seemed as great a miracle to the people of Jesus’ day as the curing of a leper. Sending sound waves through the ether, to be picked up by a little box called a radio, would have been as wonderful to our fathers as is the sending of our voice over a beam of light to us today. Yet there is nothing supernatural about either of these. The forces of Nature have always been there, ready for our use. It is our understanding of them that has changed, our knowledge of how to USE them.
Man in ancient times looked upon the lightning as the wrath of God, just as many deeply religious people look upon poverty and sickness and calamities today in the same way, as visitations of God. Yet man has learned to harness the lightning and make it serve him.
The laws governing electricity were there all the time, waiting only for the understanding of someone wise enough to show us how to put them to good use. Just so the power to BE and HAVE what you want is right here, needing only for you to learn how it works.
Two thousand years ago, there came to this earth a Son of Man who proclaimed that His mission was—
“That ye might have LIFE, and have it more ABUNDANTLY.”
NOT, mind you, that you might learn how to die, and thus reach Heaven and a life of comfort, but that you might have LIFE—here and now. Over and over again He told us—”What things soever ye desire … ye shall have them,” and lest you might think that this referred to some future state, He assured us—”If two of you shall agree ON EARTH as touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done for them.”
Furthermore, He gave exact instructions as to how to go about getting the things you desire. When you want more of the good things of life, when happiness or success or riches seem to elude you, there is a definite formula for you to use. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven,” Jesus directed, “and all these things shall be added unto you.”
“Ah ha!” you say. “There it is. You do have to die and go to Heaven in order to get the good you want.” But Jesus must have anticipated that you might think just that, for He pointed out specifically that the Kingdom of Heaven is not afar off, in the clouds or in the next world. “The Kingdom of Heaven cometh not with observation,” He said. “Neither shall they say, Lo here, lo there! For behold, the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”
What Is Heaven?
That word “Heaven” is perhaps the most misunderstood word in the Bible. In the original Greek text, the word used for “Heaven” is OURANOS, which, translated literally, means EXPANSION. And what is expansion? It is increasing, spreading out, multiplying, is it not? “Seek ye first the Kingdom of EXPANSION, and all these things shall be added unto you.” Seek a place or a state of being where you can expand, grow, increase, multiply, bring forth fruit.
But we don’t need to seek such a place, for Jesus assured us that the Kingdom of Heaven is already within us. We must therefore look within ourselves for this faculty of expansion.
Now what, within us, has unlimited power to expand? Our muscles are elastic, our lungs and many of our organs can be expanded to an extent, but none of them can expand greatly without harm to itself and to the body.
The only thing in this body of ours that can expand without limit is our MIND, our imaging faculties. So Jesus’ advice might be paraphrased— “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Mind, of imagery, and all these things shall be added unto you.”
That would seem to fit in with Jesus’ own description of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. “The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field; which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.” “The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened.”
What is the property of a mustard seed? It spreads— a single seed will grow into a tree, a single tree will produce enough seeds to plant a great field. And what is the property of leaven or yeast? It expands—in a single night it can expand a hundred times in size.
Go back over any of the miracles of increase in the Bible and see if they are not all miracles of EXPANSION. How did Elijah make the oil and meal last, so that one measure of oil and a little meal fed him and the widow and her son for an indefinite period? How did Elisha increase the pot of oil for that other widow who came to him to save her sons from bondage, so that she had enough to fill all the vessels she could borrow from her neighbors?
By EXPANDING them, did they not? And that is how you can increase your substance, your happiness, your every good thing.
When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, what did He teach them? “Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” In other words, may the good that you have imaged for me in the Heaven of your consciousness be made manifest here on earth.
God is MIND, and He dwells in the Kingdom of Mind or Heaven, There—in the mind and thoughts of God—all is good. He images you as perfect, your surroundings pleasant and comfortable, all your ways cast in pleasant places. He does not think up sickness and troubles for you. He images you as His perfect child, happy and care-free, with everything of good that makes life desirable. He is your Father, and what father, even among us here on earth, would plan anything but good for his children? As Jesus reminded us—”What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?”
In short, when you pray . . . “Thy will be done . . .” you are asking that everything of good that the Father has imaged for you in His mind should be made manifest for you here on earth. For His will, like that of every father, is that His children should be contented and happy, that they should have everything that is for their good.
How can we help to bring this about? By putting our own lives and especially our thoughts on the plane of the Kingdom of Heaven—in other words, by starting here and now to live in that Kingdom of Heaven.
When you meet evil on its own level, you meet it at a disadvantage. You may overcome it, but only after a terrific struggle. The only sure way to overcome evil is to get above it—to use the Law of the Higher Potential not merely to defeat the evil that confronts you, but to replace it with the perfect condition you desire.
That is what Jesus bade us do when He told us to “Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven (of expansion, of mind, of the imaging faculties).”
Seek in your own mind the ideal condition you would have, expand your thoughts to image it in every detail, see it as part of the Kingdom of Heaven, so that you can be thankful for it and praise God for it. See it, believe in it, until you can be happy over it and no longer fearful or worrying about seeming conditions around you.
In the beginning all was void—space—nothingness. How did God construct the planets, the firmaments, the earth and all things on and in it from this formless void? By first making a mental image on which to build.
That is what you, too, must do. You control your destiny, your fortune, your happiness to the exact extent to which you can think them out, VISUALIZE them, SEE them, and allow no vagrant thought of fear or worry to mar their completion and beauty. The quality of your thought is the measure of your power. Clear, forceful thought has the power of attracting to itself everything it may need for the fruition of those thoughts. As W. D. Wattles puts it in his “Science of Getting Rich”:
“There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe. A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imagined by the thought. Man can form things in his thought, and by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.”
The connecting link between your conscious mind and the Kingdom of Heaven is thought, and every thought that is in harmony with progress and good, every thought that is freighted with the right idea, can penetrate to the Heaven Mind. And penetrating to it, it comes back with the power of God to accomplish it. You don’t need to originate the ways and means. God knows how to bring about any necessary results. There is but one right way to solve any given problem. When your human judgment is unable to decide what that one right way is, turn to the Lord for guidance. You need never fear the outcome, for if you heed His advice you cannot go wrong.
Always remember—your mind is but a conductor— good or poor as you make it—for the power of the Universal Mind or God. And thought is the connecting energy. Use that conductor, and you will improve its conductivity. Demand much, and you will receive the more. The Lord is not a niggard in any of His gifts. “Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and It shall be opened unto you.”
That is the law of life. And the destiny of man lies not in poverty and hardship, but in living up to his high estate in unity with the Heaven Mind, with the Power that governs the universe.
To look upon poverty and sickness as sent by God and therefore inevitable, is the way of the weakling. God never sent us anything but good. What is more, He has never yet failed to give to those who would use them the means to overcome any condition not of His making.
Sickness and poverty are not of His making. They are not evidences of virtue, but of weakness. God gave us everything in abundance, and He expects us to manifest that abundance. If you had a son you loved very much, and you surrounded him with good things which he had only to exert himself in order to reach, you wouldn’t like it if he showed himself to the world half-starved, ill-kempt and clothed in rags, merely because he was unwilling to exert himself enough to reach for the good things you had provided. No more, in my humble opinion, does God.
Man’s principal business in life, as I see it, is to establish a contact with the Heaven Mind. It is to acquire an understanding of this power that is in him. “With all thy getting, get understanding,” said Solomon.
“Happy is the man that findeth wisdom,
And the man that getteth understanding.
For the gaining of it is better than the gaining of s!lver.
And the profit thereof than fine gold.
She is more precious than rubies:
And none of the things thou canst desire
Are to be compared unto her.
Length of days is in her right hand:
In her left hand are riches and honor.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
And all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her.
And happy is everyone that retaineth her.”
—Proverbs
When you become conscious, even to a limited degree, of your one-ness with this God Mind, your ability to call upon It at will for anything you may need, it makes a different man of you. Gone are the fears, gone are the worries. You know that your success, your health, your happiness will be measured only by the degree to which you can impress the fruition of your desires upon mind.
The toil and worry, the wearisome grind and the back-breaking work, will go in the future as in the past to those who will not use their minds. The less they use them, the more they will sweat. And the more they work only from the neck down, the less they will be paid and the more hopeless their lot will become. It is Mind that rules the world.
You see, from an ordinary earthly point of view, any savage or even many animals are to all intents as good as you or I. They are stronger, have greater vitality, live longer comparatively, and some are surer of their sustenance. The only faculty in which we are their superior is our mind.
And the only faculty that can make us superior to those around us, that can keep us from being the sport of circumstance and lift us above all danger of want or sickness, is that same mind.
Why is it that fervent prayer often works what seems to us to be a miracle? Why does Treasure Mapping bring such marvelous results? Because both put us upon the Heaven-plane, the plane where the Father works with us to bring about the object we desire.
When you pray earnestly, you see in your mind’s eye the condition or result you desire. When you Treasure Map, you picture on paper the condition you want to see realized. And that is exactly how God worked when He created the world. “In the beginning was the word (the mental image).” In the beginning, He formed a picture in His own mind of what He wanted to create. “And the word (the mental image) was made flesh.”
It was made manifest, became reality for all to see.
Your word—your mental image—can be made flesh in the same way. All it needs is to get on the same plane that God is on when He creates—the plane of the Kingdom of Heaven—of imagery and faith. Remember the words of the Psalmist—”In Thy Book, all my members were written, when as yet there was none of them.” And elsewhere in the Scriptures, you find—”The Lord made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew ”
That is the way you must create the conditions you desire. Create them in your own mind first.
“The imagination,” says Glenn Clark in “The Soul’s Sincere Desire,” “is of all qualities in man the most God-like—that which associates him most closely with God. The first mention we read of man in the Bible is where he is spoken of as an ‘image.’ ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ The only place where an image can be conceived is in the imagination. Thus man, the highest creation of God, was a creation of God’s imagination.
“The source and center of all man’s creative power— the power that above all others lifts him above the level of brute creation, and that gives him dominion, is his power of making images, or the power of the imagination. There are some who have always thought that the imagination was something which makes-believe that which is not. This is fancy—not imagination. Fancy would convert that which is real into pretense and sham; imagination enables one to see through the appearance of a thing to what it really is.”
There is a very real law of cause and effect which makes the dream of the dreamer come true. It is the law of visualization—the law that calls into being in this outer material world everything that is real in the inner world. Imagination pictures the thing you desire. VISION idealizes it. It reaches beyond the thing that is, into the conception of what can be. Imagination gives you the picture. Vision gives you the impulse to make the picture your own.
Chapter 3 – AS A MAN THINKETH
WE CANNOT CHANGE the past experience, but we can determine what the new ones shall be like. We can make the coming day just what we want it to be. We can be tomorrow what we think today. For the thoughts are causes and the conditions are the effects.
Thought is the only force. Just as polarity controls the electron, gravitation the planets, tropism the plants and lower animals—just so thought controls the action and the environment of man. And thought is subject wholly to the control of mind. Its direction rests with us.
Walt Whitman had the right of it when he said “Nothing external to me has any power over me.” Each of us makes his own world—and he makes it through mind.
Thoughts are the causes. Conditions are merely effects. We can mold ourselves and our surroundings by resolutely directing our thoughts towards the goal we have in mind.
Ordinary animal life is very definitely controlled by temperature, by climate, by seasonal conditions. Man alone can adjust himself to any reasonable temperature or condition. Man alone has been able to free himself to a great extent from the control of natural forces through his understanding of the relation of cause and effect. And now man is beginning to get a glimpse of the final freedom that shall be his from all material causes when he shall acquire the complete understanding that mind is the only cause and that effects are what he sees.
“We moderns are unaccustomed,” says one talented writer, “to the mastery over our own inner thoughts and feelings. That a man should be a prey to any thought that chances to take possession of his mind, is commonly among us assumed as unavoidable. It may be a matter of regret that he should be kept awake all night from anxiety as to the issue of a lawsuit on the morrow, but that he should have the power of determining whether he be kept awake or not seems an extravagant demand. The image of an impending calamity is no doubt odious, but its very odiousness (we say) makes it haunt the mind all the more pertinaciously, and it is useless to expel it. Yet this is an absurd position for man, the heir of all the ages, to be in: Hag-ridden by the flimsy creatures of his own brain. If a pebble in our boot torments us, we expel it. We take off the boot and shake it out. And once the matter is fairly understood, it is just as easy to expel an intruding and obnoxious thought from the mind. About this there ought to be no mistake, no two opinions. The thing is obvious, clear and unmistakable. It should be as easy to expel an obnoxious thought from the mind as to shake a stone out of your shoe; and until a man can do that, it is just nonsense to talk about his ascendancy over nature, and all the rest of it. He is a mere slave, and a prey to the bat-winged phantoms that flit through the corridors of his own brain. Yet the weary and careworn faces that we meet by thousands, even among the affluent classes of civilization, testify only too clearly how seldom this mastery is obtained. How rare indeed to find a man! How common rather to discover a creature hounded on by tyrant thoughts (or cares, or desires), cowering, wincing under the lash.
“It is one of the prominent doctrines of some of the oriental schools of practical psychology that the power of expelling thoughts, or if need be, killing them dead on the spot, must be attained. Naturally the art requires practice, but like other arts, when once acquired there is no mystery or difficulty about it. It is worth practice. It may be fairly said that life only begins when this art has been acquired. For obviously when, instead of being ruled by individual thoughts, the whole flock of them in their immense multitude and variety and capacity is ours to direct and dispatch and employ where we list, life becomes a thing so vast and grand, compared to what it was before, that its former condition may well appear almost ante-natal. If you can kill a thought dead, for the time being, you can do anything else with it that you please. And therefore it is that this power is so valuable. And it not only frees a man from mental torment (which is nine-tenths at least of the torment of life), but it gives him a concentrated power of handling mental work absolutely unknown to him before. The two are co-relative to each other.”
There is no intelligence in matter—whether that matter be electronic energy made up in the form of stone, or iron, or wood, or flesh. It all consists of Energy, the universal substance from which Mind forms all material things. Mind is the only intelligence. It alone is eternal. It alone is supreme in the universe.
When we reach that understanding, we will no longer have cause for fear, because we will realize that Universal Mind is the Creator of life only; that death is not an actuality—it is merely the absence of life—and life will be ever-present. Remember the old fairy story of how the Sun was listening to a lot of earthly creatures talking of a very dark place they had found? A place of Stygian blackness. Each told how terrifically dark it had seemed. The Sun went and looked for it. He went to the exact spot they had described. He searched everywhere. But he could find not even a tiny dark spot. And he came back and told the earth-creatures he did not believe there was any dark place.
When the sun of understanding shines on all the dark spots in our lives, we will realize that there is no cause, no creator, no power, except good; evil is not an entity—it is merely the absence of good. And there can be no ill effects without an evil cause. Since there is no evil cause, only good can have reality or power. There is no beginning or end to good. From it there can be nothing but blessing for the whole race. In it is found no trouble. If God (or Good—the two are synonymous) is the only cause, then the only effect must be like the cause. “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.”
Chapter 4 – THE MASTER OF YOUR FATE
ORISON SWETT MARDEN WROTE—”A highly magnetized piece of steel will attract and lift a piece of unmagnetized steel ten times its own weight. De-magnetize that same piece of steel and it will be powerless to attract or lift even a feather’s weight.
“Now, my friends, there is the same difference between the man who is highly magnetized by a sublime faith in himself, and the man who is demagnetized by his lack of faith, his doubts, his fears, that there is between the magnetized and the de-magnetized pieces of steel. If two men of equal ability, one magnetized by a divine self-confidence, the other demagnetized by fear and doubt, are given similar tasks, one will succeed and the other will fail. The self-confidence of the one multiplies his powers a hundred-fold; the lack of it subtracts a hundred-fold from the power of the other.”
When Frank A. Vanderlip, former President of the National City Bank, was a struggling youngster, he asked a successful friend what one thing he would urge a young man to do who was anxious to make his way in the world. “Look as though you have already succeeded,” his friend told him. Shakespeare expresses the same thought in another way—”Assume a virtue if you have it not.” Look the part. Dress the part. Act the part. Be successful in your own thought first. It won’t be long before you will be successful before the world as well.
David V. Bush, in his book “Applied Psychology and Scientific Living,” says: “Man is like the wireless operator. Man is subject to miscellaneous wrong thought currents if his mind is not in tune with the Infinite, or if he is not keyed up to higher vibrations than those of negation.
“A man who thinks courageous thoughts sends these courageous thought waves through the universal ether until they lodge in the consciousness of someone who is tuned to the same courageous key. Think a strong thought, a courageous thought, a prosperity thought, and these thoughts will be received by someone who is strong, courageous and prosperous.
“It is just as easy to think in terms of abundance as to think in terms of poverty. If we think poverty thoughts we become the sending and receiving stations for poverty thoughts. We send out a ‘poverty’ mental wireless and it reaches the consciousness of some poverty-stricken ‘receiver.’ We get what we think.
“It is just as easy to think in terms of abundance, opulence and prosperity as it is to think in terms of lack, limitation and poverty.
“If a man will raise his rate of vibration by faith currents or hope currents, these vibrations go through the Universal Mind and lodge in the consciousness of people who are keyed to the same tune. Whatever you think is sometime, somewhere, received by a person who is tuned to your thought key.
“If a man is out of work and he thinks thoughts of success, prosperity, harmony, position and growth, just as surely as his thoughts are things—as Shakespeare says— someone will receive his vibrations of success, prosperity, harmony, position and growth.
“If we are going to be timid, selfish, penurious and picayunish in our thinking, these thought waves which we have started in the universal ether will go forth until they come to a mental receiving station of the same caliber. ‘Birds of a feather flock together,’ and minds of like thinking are attracted one to the other.
“If you need money, all you have to do is to send up your vibrations to a strong, courageous receiving station, and someone who can meet your needs will be attracted to you or you to him.”
When you learn that you are entitled to win—in any right undertaking in which you may be engaged—you will win. When you learn that you have a right to a legitimate dominion over your own affairs, you will have dominion over them. The promise is that we can do all things through the Mind that was in Christ.
The Heaven Mind plays no favorites. No one human being has any more power than any other. It is simply that few of us use the power that is in our hands. The great men and women of the world are in no wise SUPER Beings. They are ordinary creatures like you and me, who have stumbled upon the way of drawing upon their subconscious mind—and through it upon the God Mind. Speaking of Henry Ford’s phenomenal success, his friend Thomas A. Edison said of him—”He draws upon his subconscious mind.”
The secret of being what you have it in you to be is simply this: Decide now what it is you want of life, exactly what you wish your future to be. Plan it out in detail. Vision it from start to finish. See yourself as you are now, doing those things you have always wanted to do. Make them REAL in your mind’s eye—feel them, live them, believe them, especially at the moment of going to sleep, when it is easiest to reach your subconscious mind—and you will soon be seeing them in real life.
It matters not whether you are young or old, rich or poor.
The time to begin is NOW. It is never too late.
Remember those lines of Appleton’s:
” I knew his face the moment that he passed
Triumphant in the thoughtless, cruel throng—
I gently touched his arm—he smiled at me—
He was the Man that Once I Meant to Be!
“Where I had faHed, he’d won from life, Success;
Where I had stumbled, with sure feet he stood;
Alike—yet unalike—we faced the world,
And through the stress he found that life was good.
And I? The bitter wormwood in the glass,
The shadowed way along which failures pass!
Yet as I saw him thus, joy came to me—
He was the Man that Once I Meant to Be!
“We dd not speak. But in his sapient eyes
I saw the spirit that had urged him on,
The courage that had held him through the fight
Had once been mine. I thought, ‘Can it be gone?’
He felt that unmasked question—felt it so
His pale lips formed the one-word answer, ‘No!’
“Too late to win? No! Not too late for me—
He is the Man that Still I Mean to Be!”
(From “The Quiet Courage.” D. Appleton & Co., New York.)
The secret of power lies in understanding the infinite resources of your own mind. When you begin to realize that the power to do anything, to be anything, to have anything, is within yourself, then and then only will you take your proper place in the world.
As Bruce Barton put it—”Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance.”
Chapter 5 – THE MASTER MIND
THE CONNECTING LINK between the human and the Divine, between the formed universe and formless energy, lies in your imagining faculty. It is, of all things human, the most God-like. It is our part of Divinity. Through it we share in the creative power of the Heaven Mind. Through it we can turn the most drab existence into a thing of life and beauty. It is the means by which we avail ourselves of all the good which God is constantly offering to us in such profusion. It is the means by which we can reach any goal, win any prize.
Do you want happiness? Do you want success? Do you want position, power, riches? Image them! How did God first make man? “In His image created He him.” He “imaged” man in His Mind.
And that is the way everything has been made since time began. It was first imaged in Mind. That is the way everything you want must start— with a mental image. So use your imagination! Picture in it your Heart’s Desire. Imagine it—day-dream it so vividly, so clearly, that you will actually BELIEVE you HAVE it. In the moment that you carry this conviction to your subconscious mind—in that moment your dream will become a reality. It may be a while before you realize it, but the important part is done. You have created the model. You can safely leave it to your subconscious mind to do the rest.
Every man wants to get out of the rut, to grow, to develop into something better. Here is the open road— open to you whether you have schooling, training, position, wealth, or not. Remember this: Your subconscious mind knew more from the time you were a baby than is in all the books in all the colleges and libraries of the world.
So don’t let lack of training, lack of education, hold you back. Your mind can meet every need—and will do so if you give it the chance. The Apostles were almost all poor men, uneducated men, yet they did a work that is unequaled in historical annals. Joan of Arc was a poor peasant girl, unable to read or write—yet she saved France! The pages of history are dotted with poor men, uneducated men, who thought great thoughts, who used their imaginations to master circumstances and became rulers of men. Most great dynasties started with some poor, obscure man. Napoleon came of a poor, humble family. He got his appointment to the Military Academy only through very hard work and the pulling of many political strings. Even as a Captain of Artillery he was so poverty-stricken that he was unable to buy his equipment when offered an appointment to India. Business today is full of successful men who have scarcely the rudiments of ordinary education. It was only after he had made his millions that Andrew Carnegie hired a tutor to give him the essentials of an education.
So it isn’t training and it isn’t education that make you successful. These help, but the thing that really counts is that gift of the Gods—Creative Imagination!
You have that gift. Use it! Make every thought, every fact, that comes into your mind pay you a profit. Make it work and produce for you. Think of things—not as they are but as they MIGHT be. Make them real, live and interesting. Don’t merely dream—but CREATE! Then use your imagination to make that CREATION of advantage to mankind—and, incidentally, yourself.
Get above your circumstances, your surroundings. Get above your troubles—no matter what they may be. Remember, the Law is that Power flows only from a higher to the lower potential. Use your Imaging faculty to put yourself and keep yourself on a higher plane, above trouble and adversity. “Circumstances?” exclaimed Napoleon when at the height of his power. “I make circumstances!” And that is what you too must do.
“As the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, and giveth seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent It.”—Isaiah.
Do You Have Money Worries?
Say to yourself and believe—”There is no lack in the Kingdom of Heaven.” Then make a Treasure Map as suggested in The Magic Word, showing all the riches and supply you may long for. All this must start, you know with an idea, a mental image.
“All that the Father hath is mine,” said Jesus. And all that the Father hath is yours, too, for all He has to begin with is IDEAS, mental images, and you can create these as easily as He. Make your mental image of the thing you want, picture it on paper in so far as you can to make it more real and vivid to you, then have FAITH!
Faith starts you DOING the things you need to do to bring your ideas into realities. Faith brings to you the opportunities and people and things you need to make your images realities.
All that the Father hath is yours—all the ideas, all the mental images, all the power to make them manifest.
Do you want riches? They are yours for the making. The ancient Alchemists who spent their lives trying to turn base metals into gold were trying and working from the bottom up. Power does not flow that way. You must start ABOVE the thing you want, working from the higher potential to the lower.
Riches, health, happiness, power, all are yours if you work for them in the right way—if you make them yours in Heaven first and then use your faith and your abilities to make them manifest here on earth.
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,” God’s will for you is for riches, for happiness, for health. If you haven’t these now, deny the lack. Deny the wrong conditions. Say to yourself—”There is no lack in Heaven. There is no disease there, no weakness, no trouble or conflict, no worries of any kind. There is only love and plenty.”
Then take your beliefs out of the images around you, which are merely the result of your previous belief objectified and put all your faith, all your hopes, all your strength and abilities into making your new Heaven images come true.
You CAN do it. But you must believe so firmly that you can actually ACT the part. As the Prophet Noel told us “Let the weak say—I am strong!” And the poor say, I am rich. And the sick say, I am well. And the miserable say, I am happy. Say it, repeat it until you believe it— then ACT the part!
In one of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Martian stories, he told of a great walled city that had outlived its usefulness and was now peopled by only a few old men. But every time an invading army appeared before this city, it was driven away by hordes of archers that manned every foot of the walls and even swarmed out through the gates to meet the enemy in the open. When the enemy fled, the archers disappeared!
Where did the archers come from? According to the story, they came entirely from the minds of the old men who still lived in that almost- deserted city. These old men remembered the huge armies that had garrisoned the town in its heyday. They remembered former invasions when their soldiers had repelled every assault and then dashed out through the gates and swept the invaders into the sea. And by gathering together and visualizing those mighty armies of theirs as once more existent, they brought them into being so that their enemies too could see them and be driven into flight by them.
Does that sound far-fetched? Then remember that you have only to go back to the Bible to find a parallel. Just turn to II Kings, Chapter 6, and you will read how the King of Syria sent his horses and chariots and a great host to capture the Prophet Elisha, and how in the night they compassed him around.
“And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Aas, my master, what shall we do?
“And he answered, Fear not! For they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
“And Elisha prayed, and said. Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and behold, ,he mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire around Elisha.”
Again, when the High Priest sent his soldiers to seize Jesus, and Peter struck one of the soldiers with his sword, Jesus rebuked him, saying: “Thinkest thou that 1 cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels?”
The mountains can be full of chariots of fire for you, too. The Father can send to your help as many legions of angels as you may need. All it requires is the power to visualize what you want, the faith to believe that you receive, the serenity to sit back and LET God work through you.
“However meager be my worlcdy wealth,
Let me give something that shall aid my kind,
A word of courage, or a thought of health,
Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find.
Let me tonight took back across the span
‘Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say—
Because of some good act to beast or man—
The world is better that I lived today.”
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
The End