Excerpts from
The Magic in Your Mind by U. S. Anderson Order in Adobe PDF eBook form for $4.95 or click here to order in printed form from Amazon.com Book description This book reveals a mental magic that guarantees increased achievement and assures success. Many people have locked themselves in prisons of their own making because they have been unsuccessful. The Magic in Your Mind teaches the magic by which men become free and begin to grow into the image of the secret self. Perfect action and perfect works stem from an inner conviction of the mental cause behind all things. A man changes the state of his outer world by first changing the state of his inner world. Everything that comes to him from outside is the result of his own consciousness. When he changes that consciousness he alters his perception and thus the world he sees. By understanding the process and effect of mental imagery, he goes directly along the correct path to his goal. FOREWORD This book
reveals a mental magic that assures success, that absolutely
guarantees increased achievement, whether your profession is
in the arts or
business, in science or sales, in sports, war, or politics. Here
you will
learn the secret way in which your mind is tied to the source of all
power; you
will learn how you are capable of becoming anything and doing
anything you can
visualize. Every man’s
consciousness is constantly changing, is trapped at the knife-edge
overlap of
past and future, reacts rather than acts, is incomplete and
partial, eternally
seeks itself, for since the mere state of being throws no light on that
state,
consciousness learns of itself through reaction to outside stimuli. If
a man
comes to believe he is unsuccessful, it is because he carries the
impression he
has been unsuccessful, and this conclusion, once
adopted, inescapably
molds him into the shape of the thing he believes, locks him in a
prison of his
own making. The magic
by which a man becomes free is imagination. By training himself to
cast up
mental pictures of the thing he desires, by resisting sensual stimuli,
even
envisaging the exact opposite, he tends to assume a factual position in
accordance
with his vision, for his vision then becomes his experience,
rather than the
sensual stimuli that moved him before. Consciousness always assumes a
form to
suit its knowledge of itself, and where such knowledge breaks
beyond the
limits imposed by sensory experience, man begins to grow into the
image of the
Secret Self. There is
only one mind in all creation; that mind is in everyone, is in its true
state
of being not confined to anyone, not confined to the body. It is a
central,
knowing consciousness in which everything dwells, which dwells in
everything.
In a bodily-confined state it assumes the limitations imposed upon it
by the
knowledge of itself which it receives through the senses, but when
bondage to
those senses is broken by development of an inner power to perceive and
know directly,
then slavery to its embodiment is at an end. Perfect
action and perfect works stem from an inner conviction of the
mental cause
behind all things. A man changes the state of his outer world by first
changing
the state of his inner world. Everything that comes to him from
outside is the
result of his own consciousness. When he changes that
consciousness he alters
his perception and thus the world he sees. By coming to a clear
understanding
of the process and effect of mental imagery he is led irrevocably
along the
correct path to his goal. By working with this cause of all
things—his own
consciousness—he achieves infallibility in works, for inasmuch as
his mental
imagery propels him into action, that action is always true to the
picture in
his mind and will deliver him its material counterpart certainly. In this
book you will find a program for training the image power of the mind,
so that
a scene or situation cast up in consciousness will arrive in three
dimensions,
with color and sound, pulsing with life, as real for you as the outside
world.
Haven’t you ever dreamed such dreams? Haven’t you sometimes in
sleep become
immersed in a mental and spiritual world with such solidity and
dimension that
you were certain it was real and the material world a delusion? If ever
you
have known the overwhelming power of mental imagery to influence your
attitude
and perception, then you will quickly see that the salvation of each of
us is
to train his image power to obey him. In this manner it is possible to
become
free from the promptings and urgings of nature, from death and
disease and
destruction, from ineffectuality and frustration. For the man whose
inner power
of vision transcends the constantly distracting stimuli of the outer
world has
taken charge of his own life, is truly master of his fate.
Chapter 1 THE HIDDEN CAUSE OF ALL
THINGS SHAKESPEARE’S
Hamlet in his famed soliloquy pondered, “To be or not to be,” and thus
faced
squarely the primary challenge of life. Most people only exist,
never truly are at all. They exist as predictable
equations, reacting
rather than acting,
walking compendiums of aphorisms and taboos, reflexes and
syndromes. Surely
the gods must chuckle at the ironic spectacle of robots fancying
themselves
free, but still, when finally the embodied consciousness rises
above the
pain-pleasure principle of nature, then the true meaning of
freedom is made
apparent at last. ACTION VERSUS REACTION We exist
in order that we may become something more than we are, not through
favorable
circumstance or auspicious occurrence, but through an inner search
for
increased awareness. To be, to become, these are the commandments
of evolving
life, which is going somewhere, aspires to some unsealed
heights, and the
awakened soul answers the call, seeks, grows, expands. To do less
is to sink
into the reactive prison of the ego, with all its pain, suffering,
limitation,
decay, and death. The man who lives through reaction to the world about
him is
the victim of every change in his environment, now happy, now sad,
now
victorious, now defeated, affected but never affecting. He may
live many years
in this manner, rapt with sensory perception and the ups and downs of
his surface
self, but one day pain so outweighs pleasure that he suddenly
perceives his
ego is illusory, a product of outside circumstances only. Then he
either sinks
into complete animal lethargy or, turning away from the senses,
seeks inner
awareness and self-mastery. Then he is on the road to really living,
truly
becoming; then he begins to uncover his real potential; then he
discovers the
miracle of his own consciousness, the magic in his mind. Mastery
over life is not attained by dominion over material things, but by
mental
perception of their true cause and nature. The wise man does not
attempt to
bend the world to fit his way or to coerce events into a replica of his
desires, but instead strives for a higher consciousness that enables
him to
perceive the secret cause behind all things. Thus he finds a prominent
place in
events; by his utter harmony with them he actually appears to be
molding them.
He moves effortlessly through the most strenuous action, the most
perilous
times, because his attunement with the mental force that controls
the universe
guides him to perform the work that needs to be done. ELECTRO-MAGNETIC MIND This
mental force that controls the universe may be called anything you like
and
visualized any way you choose. The important thing is to understand
that it
exists, to know something about how it works, what your
relationship to it is.
It might, for instance, be likened to an enormous
electromagnetic field. All
conscious forms of life then would be tiny electro-magnetic fields
within the
universal field and finding positions within it, each according to
the kind
and quality of its field. Where each individual field would wind up
within the
main field then would be a matter of inexorable law and absolutely
unavoidable,
as is illustrated by the millions of people who perform the same tasks
over and
over with absolutely the same results, almost as if following ritual.
Perhaps
they are always sick, always defeated, “just barely misers,” perhaps
always
broke, always out of a job. If we
give just the slightest reflection to
our own lives we
cannot help but be startled by how we seem dogged by the same
situation in all
things, year after year, time after time. This deadly recurrence is the
source
of most frustration and mental illness, is the bottom root of all
failure. Yet it is
avoidable. And the way by which it is avoidable brings complete
emancipation of
the mind and spirit. For the tiny electro-magnetic field has
inherent within
it the ability to change the kind and quality of its field, so that it
will be
moved about within the main field with all the power and sureness of
the main
field until it arrives at the position its new quality of consciousness
demands. The
important thing to remember about this illustration is that the tiny
electro-magnetic
field does not move itself. It is moved by the large field. And behind
its
movement lies all the power of the large field. Any attempt by it to
move
itself is obviously futile since it is held in place by a power
infinitely
greater than itself. And it is held where it is because of what
it
is. The moment a change occurs within itself, it is moved by a power
outside
itself to a new position in the field, one in keeping with its new
potential. THE MENTAL WORLD The foregoing is admittedly an
analogy, but nevertheless S.W.
Tromp in his remarkable book, Psychical Physics, has proved
beyond all
doubt that the human being exudes certain electro-magnetic
fields, that the
earth itself gives off an electro-magnetic field, and his illustrations
are so
impeccably documented that there cannot possibly be any scientific
quarrel
with them. We indeed may be on the very threshold of scientific proof
of those
invisible areas of human aspiration that have hitherto been the
province of
philosophers, diviners, and priests. Departments of
investigation into the
paranormal abilities of the human psyche have been
established at our leading
universities, and it is now surely only a matter of time until we are
faced
with the final irrevocable proof of our intuitive perception—the power
of mind
over matter. It is a
mental world we live in, not a physical one at all. The physical
is merely an
extension of the mental, and an imperfect extension at that.
Everything we
see, hear, and feel is not a hard and inescapable fact at all, but only
the imperfect
revelation to the senses of an idea held in mind. Preoccupation
with sensory
experience has focused attention on effects instead of causes, has
led
scientific investigation down a blind alley where everything grows
smaller into
infinity or larger into infinity and walls man off from the secrets
that lie
behind life. It is not the planets and stars, the elements and winds,
or even
the existence of life itself that is the miracle that demands our
attention. It
is consciousness. It is the mere fact of being, the ability to say,
“I.” Consciousness
is an indisputable fact, the greatest miracle of all, and all the
sights and
sounds of the world are merely side-effects. THE HIDDEN “I” To be
conscious is to be conscious; there are not different kinds. The “I”
that is in
your neighbor is the exact same “I” within you. It may appear to be
different
through being attached to different sensory experience, but that is
only because
it has allowed itself to be conditioned by such experience. In
point of actual
fact consciousness is never the result of experience but the cause
instead, and
wherever we find it, it is primarily aware of existing, of being “I.”
There is
only one basic consciousness in all creation; it takes up its
residence in all
things, appears to be different according to the things it enters into,
but in
essence is never changed at all. It is intelligence, awareness, energy,
power,
creativeness, the stuff from which all things are made. It is the alpha
and
omega of existence, first cause; it is you. “Everything
in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of
one hidden
stuff,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. He pierced the veil, perceived
behind the
sense-enamoring dance of nature’s myriad forms the workings of the one
mind and
one intelligence from which all life and aspiration spring. There can
be no
inner peace or surety of action without this basic spiritual
knowledge. The man who
lives isolated from the roots of his being has cut himself off from the
source
of all power and dwells alone and without resource in a hostile and
threatening
world. Let him once perceive the true nature of life and his
relationship to it
and he soon sees that the world always reflects his thoughts. THE MASK The
surface mind or sense-self or ego is the villain of the play that is
being
enacted on the human stage at present. Man as a form of life is
sufficiently
evolved so as to understand his separateness and uniqueness. He looks
in the
mirror and understands that the reflected animal is he. He is
concerned with
the appearance and welfare of this animal and ponders its
relationships with
the world and others. He does not truly understand what he is, only
that he is
conscious and confined within a particular body, and the
experience and
knowledge he acquires, together with his disposition as to their use,
he labels
“I,” and thus he is deluded into calling a ghost by his own name. Hidden
behind this ghost, obscured by its struggles and fancies, is the Secret
Self,
which even though hidden, ignored, or misunderstood, nevertheless
moves all
things on the chessboard of life according to their natures
and aspirations.
We are never ego or sense-self. These are masks we don as we play at
the parts
we find in life. What we truly are is not a changing thing, but is
whole and
entire, powerful and serene, limitless and eternal. It springs from the
inexhaustible
source of life itself, and when we learn to identify ourselves
with it, then
we have hitched a ride on a power so far beyond our tiny temporal
selves that
our lives are changed in the most amazing manner. THE IMPRISONED SELF “To be what we are and to
become what we are capable of being,”
wrote Robert Louis Stevenson, “is the only end of life.” But when we
stultify
our divine birthright in manacles of mental and spiritual limitations,
then we
have no alternative but stagnation and pain. As long as we are
responsive
solely to the stimuli that impinge upon our senses from the outer
world, we
have no choice but to be victims of every circumstance. Locked to
the senses,
we reel under each stimulus, now aggressive, now afraid, now
joyful, now sad,
now seeking death, now life, but always our inner serenity and
equilibrium are
in the hands of something we neither understand nor control; and
so we are
puppets, pulled by invisible and unknown strings, swirling in the
maelstrom of
life like scraps of paper in the wind; and if perchance we garner
knowledge
enough to perceive our helplessness, then we often are overcome with
such
depths of sadness as to make effort against our bonds an almost
unimaginable
thing. But the
moment that we pause long enough in the headlong rush of life to
see that we
are not moving in accord with or in response to our own decisions but
rather in
reaction to the world around us, then we have taken the first step
toward
freedom. Only one who knows his slavery can aspire to be free, just as
true
freedom is possible only to one who has experienced chains. Our
hates, loves,
fears, envies, aspirations, deceits are for the most part products of
circumstance, of false and limiting codes and mores—more often innate
terrors
of mountains that are molehills; and the solution to all of them is to
stand
fore-square before them, daring them to do their utmost, exposing them
for what
they are, thus foreswearing allegiance to the cupidity of the
deluding and
blinding ego which forever keeps us thinking we are greater than
others and
less than we truly are. THE LIBERATING POWER It is not
necessary to become a mystic, even a philosopher, certainly not a
melancholy
metaphysician in order to come to grips with the spiritual side of
existence,
to establish a mental causation in your life that will give you control
of
circumstance. What is necessary, however, is that you do not immediately
throw out the
door everything that has to do with spirit simply because it is the
established
province of religion. You may be a Christian or a Hindu, a Moslem or a
Buddhist, a Taoist or Shintoist, but that only increases your
individual human
responsibility to think through all issues that bear on the world and
life and
death and your individual being. Only when you come to grips with your
own
mental essence, only when you arrive at a realization of the
ephemeral,
ever-changing nature of “I” will it become apparent that everything is
in a constant
state of growth and development and aspiration, and there are no limits
and
finalities and defeats, and anything is possible to one who first
conceives
the image in his mind. There is
within us a power of complete liberation, descended there from
whatever mind
or intelligence lies behind creation, and through it we are capable of
becoming
anything and doing anything we can visualize. The mental stuff of
which we are
made is of such kind and quality that it responds to the formation
of images
within it by the creation of a counterpart that is discernible to the
senses.
Thus any picture we hold in our minds is bound to resolve in the
material
world. We cannot help ourselves in this. As long as we live and think,
we will
hold images in our minds, and these images develop into the things of
our
lives, and so long as we think a certain way we must live a certain
way, and no
amount of willing or wishing will change it, only the vision we carry
within. THE LAW OF LIFE It is astounding and sad to see
the many thousands of people
whose mental machinery keeps delivering to them the very effects they
say they
do not want. They bewail the fact that they are poor, but that doesn’t
make
them richer. They complain about their aches and pains, but they keep
right on
being sick. They say that nobody likes them, which means they don’t
like anybody.
They aren’t bold, they aren’t aggressive, they aren’t imaginative;
mentally
they quiver and quake and are bound to negative delusions. It simply
doesn’t
matter what the picture in your mind is, it is delivered nonetheless,
with the
same amount of faithfulness and promptness if it is a picture of
poverty or
disease or fear or failure as it would be if it were a picture of
wealth or
health or courage or success. The law of life is this: all things
both good
and evil are constructed from an image held in mind. A tightrope
walker edges swiftly out on his elastic and minuscule support. High in
the air,
wavering, suspended on a thin black line, he seems to transgress all
normal
laws of behavior. What is astonishing is not that he is able to do
this thing
so well but that he dares attempt it at all. Yet what he is doing is an
inescapable result of mental law. Long before he set his first
uncertain steps
on the taut wire, he made a picture in his mind. Throughout his early
bumbling
attempts the picture persisted. He saw himself, agile,
balanced, adroitly
crossing the swaying wire, and this vision sustained him through all
early
failures, Now he flaunts his skill and courage in the very face of
death,
nonchalantly, as the spectators gasp. He is sure, poised,
confident, delivered
of all fear and mishap by the sustaining picture within. IMAGE POWER The image
power of the mind is imagination, but just what imagination
is and where it
comes from nobody seems to know. A famous surgeon is reputed to
have remarked
that he had sliced open many a brain without ever having seen a picture
or
found a thought. The imagination certainly is no more exclusive
property of the
brain than of an arm, a leg, or the stomach. Thinking is performed not
by a
part of the body or even the whole body but by the inhabitant within.
It is
that function which enables consciousness to know its surroundings
and to know
itself. Only one who thinks is able to say, “I”. Only one who can say,
“I” is
able to cast up pictures within his own being, known to no others. The
eternal striving knowledge and capacity, the most apparent thing about
life, is
resolved always by two principal elements of the strife—the knower and the thing
to be
known. By definition these appear to be separate, and we observe that a
man
ordinarily copes with the outer world by tabulating the manner in which
it
impinges upon his senses. A thing is so long and so wide and weighs so
much and
is so hard and a certain color. A name is given it, and as long as each
subsequent
time it is encountered it maintains the majority of its original
characteristics, a man recognizes it for what it is and knows it when
he sees
it. If you ask him if it is near, he is able to answer instantly,
simply by
glancing around. If its presence produces some particular effect upon
him, like
fear or anger or love or tension, then the mere presence or absence of
this
object may be said to materially affect his life. In that case, his
state of
mind is not a matter of his own determination, but instead is the
direct
result of the object as he encounters it or avoids it in the
outer-world. INNER VISION Life in
animal and vegetable forms is purely a matter of reaction. There is
first the
organism, then there are the elements that intrude their presence
upon it. The
conflict thus engendered resolves itself in the process of evolution as
each
organism attempts to overcome the obstacles it meets, but this
influence,
through the lower stages of evolution, apparently comes only from
outside and
is the result of processes and forces beyond the control of the
organism.
Nature holds the world and life in an iron grip, and lower animal as
well as
vegetable life is led inexorably along a path it neither
understands nor can
avoid. A thing is the kind of thing it is through a creative process
that
appears to be outside it; existence itself, in any shape or form,
appears to
be beyond the power and scope of the individual being. We are born and
we die,
and nothing within our known powers or knowledge can aid or stop these
events.
And insofar as we live in response to the senses, we are automatons
only, and
the shape of our lives is predestined by the circumstances we encounter. Imagination is the tool by
which we may be delivered from our
bondage. We can decide what we will think. We can decide to
originate thought
from some secret wellspring within rather than in response to the
stimuli of
the outer world. We can resolve that the images in our minds will no
longer be
products of the conditions we meet, but instead that our visualization
will be
the result of our inner resources and strength, in conformance with our
goals
and desires. Thus the quality of our consciousness will be tempered by
our true
motivations and we are freed at once of the trap of defeating our
purposes
through giving credence to every obstacle. The unalterable law is this:
only
that which takes root in mind can become a fact in the world. Thus the
man
whose consciousness is influenced only by the goals and purposes he has
set
within is delivered of all defeat and failure, for obstacles then are
only temporary
and have no effect upon his inner being. Only that which conforms to
his inner
vision is accepted home at last and allowed to take root in the
plastic,
creative medium of the Secret Self. THE SECRET SELF It is
knowledge about and faith in this Secret Self that is the key to
correct use of
the imagination. No man lives in the dark when he learns where the
light is. To
understand the Secret Self is to free oneself from bondage to
circumstance, to
loose within a power compounded upon itself, to provide life with
perfect
working and perfect serenity. This entity within each of us, not the
ego, not experience,
not time or circumstance or place or position, but consciousness
only, the “I”
divested of all accoutrements except pure sense of existence, this
is the self
that contains all power, whose essence is greater than the individual,
greater
than ten thousand individuals, for it is the supporting structure upon
which
all things are built, the evolving self of the universe. It is not
confined to
the body, to a time or place or condition, but is in all times and
places and
conditions. It is infinite and eternal and only one, but being so as
easily
manifests as the finite and temporal and many. All are contained within
it, yet
each contains it all,
for by its very nature all of it is everyplace at the same moment. The Secret
Self is timeless and eternal. It is the self of the universe and it is
the self
of each of us, the self of you. It was never born and it will never
die. It
enters into each of its creations and becomes that creation. What
is going on
in life and the world and the universe is completely its working and
the result
of its secret purpose and undivulged goal. The nature of its being is
mental;
its essence is dynamic and creative. It is the eternal stuff that
occupies all
space and time and within which there is no dimension. It is all ends
and middles
and opposites and extremes, and it is infinitely creative. The
myriad forms of
life are but a tiny indication of its vast potential for plastic
multiplicity
out of its essential oneness. MENTAL ASCENDENCY The Secret
Self is within you. It is not visited upon a fortunate few and
withheld from
others, but is totally existent in the heart of each of us. Insofar as
we are
able to divorce ourselves from the world and the ego and sensual
stimuli we
will become increasingly aware of its existence within and consciously
strive
to identify ourselves with it. It is through this identification that
the seeds
of power are sown. One who is able to cast off the limitations of ego
and improve
the quality of his consciousness through disciplinary use of the
imagination is
able by means of direct identification to become one with the
Secret Self and
thus attain to a measure of its power for perfection. The potential for
achieving this astounding goal lies within each of us. By means of
inner mental
ascendancy and pictorial definition a man may become one with
the purposes of
the Secret Self and thus become infallible in his works and his
goals. This is a pretty big capsule to
swallow. Our materialistic society
with its reverence for the products of science has excised
three-quarters of
our mentality. We have concerned ourselves too much with the world,
what it is,
what is in it, how we can use it, and today we know little more of the
origins
and purposes of life than we did before men were able to read and
write. It is
difficult when we know something of the principles of the gasoline
engine, the
generation and transmission of electricity, the refining and
tempering of
steel, of electronic and radio transmission, to admit the
possibility that something
radically opposed to the viewpoint of science could have a
foundation in fact.
Science says, “The laws of nature are supreme, and man must learn to
live with
them in order to prosper.” Now comes this diametrically opposed theory,
“Nature
is subservient to mind, not the mind of man as we know it, but the
Supreme Mind
or Secret Self that lies behind life, and this Secret Self is within
each of
us. We can come to know it and to use it, and thus transcend the laws
of nature
and free ourselves from bondage to the senses and the material world.” THOUGHTS BECOME THINGS What is
going on in life is the evolution of the individual to complete oneness
with
the Secret Self. The universal being that lies behind creation has
differentiated into finite form, taken disguise, so to speak, in
order to work
out the manifold sides of its infinite and eternal nature.
Therefore the man
who expands his consciousness is fulfilling the fondest wish of
life. It is
not necessary that we become saints to understand as much of the
Secret Self
as is necessary to use its power in our affairs. To know this law is
enough:
whatever we accept as a permanent mental image in our consciousness
must manifest
in our world, for we become in life what we are in consciousness,
and nothing
can alter that fact. It takes a
great deal of courage to admit to yourself that if you are sick,
frightened,
frustrated, or defeated you have brought these conditions on
yourself and no
one but yourself can get rid of them. Occasionally someone so afflicted
will
experiment with the power of his mind to cure him, but will give it
only the
most cursory trial. If, for example, he is ill and in pain, he might
say, “I
visualized myself well and happy, but I hurt just as much as ever.” What he
didn’t do
above all things was visualize himself well and happy. He visualized
himself
sick and in pain. The moment he began to visualize himself well
and happy, he
would become well and happy. This is not a law that works once in a
while or
part of the time or on auspicious occasions. It works all of the time
and it
works in the exact same way, and it is returning to you right now
in the material
world the images you maintain in your mind. You cannot escape them.
They surround
you, sustain you, or torment you. They are good or evil or uplifting or
degrading or exalting or painful according to the vision that
prompts them,
and as long as you are alive, as long as you think and imagine, you are
literally surrounded day and night by the images that predominate
in your consciousness.
THOUGHT CONTROL The
startling power of the Secret Self is that it always makes
manifest the image
it beholds. Nothing illustrates this fact better than the current
experiments
with hypnosis. A man may be in such excruciating pain that even
narcotics will
not relieve him, but he can be put under deep hypnosis and told that
there is
no pain at all, and presto, there is no pain. He may have a deep and
abiding
fear of crowds, but under hypnosis it can be suggested to him that he
likes
crowds, and lo and behold, he enjoys them most of all. He can become
stronger,
healed of disease, smarter, more aggressive, possessed of
endurance and
indomitableness, all because these things are impressed upon his psyche
as
facts and the image in his mind grows from them. “Aha!” the cry goes up, “find
me a good hypnotist. I want to be
smart and strong and successful and all those good things and to be rid
of
weakness and pain and failure.” And hypnosis can do it too, if you are
willing
to abdicate as the person in charge of your life. If you are willing
that
someone else run it every hour of every day throughout the whole of it,
then
you can turn your life over to a hypnotist and he can remake it in the
image
you outline. However, it will make small difference to you. You may
still be in
the vehicle, but you no longer will be driving. If effort and
strife and the
overcoming of obstacles are the spurs to growth that the Secret Self
intends
them to be, then surely you will have abdicated from life itself. You need
no hypnotist to put the power of the Secret Self to constructive
work in your
life. No hypnotist can overcome the negative image making of your
mind unless
he is with you twenty-four hours a day. You are the only one in
constant
rapport with yourself, and thus you are the only one able to
police the
thoughts and images you entertain. If you let the image be prompted by
something
outside you, then you exercise no control over your life. If you accept
images
only in accord with your desires, then life will deliver your inner
goals. In
any case, the magnificent promise of the Secret Self is this: you
can change
your life by altering the images in your mind, for what comes to you in
the end
is only that which you have been accepting in consciousness. Now there
are many people who agree with this premise but are quick to point out
that the
images in the consciousness of most persons are projected there
from the
subconscious and are not of their own choosing. Most schools of
psychotherapy
apparently feel this way, for they propose a tedious and time-consuming
treatment bent on expurgating from the subconscious memories of painful
and bitter
occasions which might prompt unpleasant images in the mind. Seven
or eight
years of this process have not noticeably emptied painful memories
from the
subconscious of most patients, and in any case, if a treatment is truly
efficacious, it cannot possibly consume so long a time. The
saddest thing
about the modern “put the blame elsewhere” school of
psychoanalysis is that
the person undergoing it accepts it as justification for his
failure to
police his consciousness and thereafter expects such policing to
be accomplished
by having the neighborhood rid of criminals. If he achieves some
semblance of a
changed consciousness in the hands of the psychiatrist, he soon goes
back to a
world full of negative thoughts and
ideas, and just because he does not
police his own mind,
they readily find acceptance there. You may not be able to alter the
positions
of the stars, to stop the earth from revolving, to cause the winds to
blow or
the sea to calm, but you can choose what you will think. You
can think
what you want to think. You can think only in response to an inner
vision and a
secret goal, and if you take your stand with a firm heart and a high
resolve
you will be successful and you will not be intimidated and you will
project
your image clear and true and its counterpart will return to you in the
world. DRY HOLE CASEY In a
little village on the western slopes of the Great Divide lived a man
whose
entire life had followed one ignominious pattern. For thirty-five years
he had
been an oil well driller and had followed the frontiers of oil
exploration
throughout the United States. During that time he had drilled
forty-four
wildcat wells and not one of them had made a strike. He had drilled in
Texas,
Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, California, New Mexico, Arizona,
Colorado, Wyoming,
and still he had not hit. Oil operators wouldn’t hire him anymore. He
became
known as “Dry Hole” Casey, a nice guy, but strictly out of luck.
Finally he
took a job, in a Colorado mine and eked out his days without hope. He
kept his
drilling rig, though. It was his first love. Weekends would find him in
the
backyard, lubricating and cleaning its parts, handling them with
ritualistic
care. One day in late spring, when
the snow stood in broad glittering
fields on the slopes of the mountains and the rivers and streams were
high and
roily, he wandered up into the woods and sat gazing over the valley.
The valley
was a basin hemmed in on three sides by precipitous intrusions of
granite, and
these mountains had been productive of many minerals, lead, zinc,
silver,
tungsten, manganese. Our friend gazed to the west, to where the
basin sloped
down to a plateau. Suddenly his mind formed the perfect picture of a
faulted
anticline, a predominant type of subsurface oil trap. The image seemed
superimposed
over the scene before his eyes, so that he could almost see the oil
below the
surface of the ground. He trembled before his vision, could not resist
it. It
seemed like a sudden visitation from heaven, and he left the
mountainside absolutely
certain that within the small valley lay a major oil field. Next day
he quit his job in the mine and with his savings managed to procure oil
lease
options on the land he visualized as being the most favorable. Now
he had to
raise capital to complete his leasing arrangements and provide
funds to drill
an initial well, a gargantuan task, since everyone who knew him
knew also his
history of failure. But the vision in his mind persisted. It led him to
take a
bus to an eastern city in quest of funds. It led him after a week of
discouragement
to a park bench and a seat alongside an elderly man who quietly and
patiently
fed the squirrels. It was a
bright warm day, and the squirrels were active, playing and clowning
over the
proffered food, and the two men laughed at their antics, and each told
stories
of other squirrels and other times and agreed that the foibles of
humanity were
not shared by animals. Warmed at each other’s company, they agreed
to lunch together
at a nearby restaurant. In the course of the luncheon, the oil driller
told his
new-found friend of his vision and his problem. His friend was
interested, questioned
him closely about the vision he had had on the mountainside,
seemed impressed
that it persisted. “How much
money do you need?” he asked. “Fifty
thousand dollars,” replied the oil well driller. “I will
provide it,” the man said suddenly. “We will be equal partners.” It seemed
incredible, but there it was—a chance acquaintanceship on a park
bench, and
the money was provided. It is almost anticlimactic to relate that
the
subsequent well discovered a rich oil field. There simply was no
alternative.
And the man who put up the money knew that it would. He had had
sufficient
experience with the power of inner vision to manifest in the world to
be absolutely
sure of his position. He did not dwell for a moment on his partner’s
previous
failures, only on the vision that possessed him now. DISSOLVING THE MASK OF VANITY What
strange alchemy prompted our oil driller to have this clear vision in
his mind,
a vision that subsequently made him a rich man, when his whole previous
life
had been one unbroken line of failure? Surely the wells he
had drilled before
had been drilled in response to a vision too. Why should they have
failed? They
failed because the vision he possessed then was one of failure. Sure,
he would
have denied it, but it was true. Perhaps a sense of the great hazard
connected
with searching for oil lay at the crux of his subconscious. Perhaps he
felt
that the odds were against him. Perhaps he was conscious of the fact
that there
are millions of acres of land without oil under them. In any case, his
vision
was one of failure, from whatever cause, and he was led into those
arrangements
that would inevitably cause him to put his drill bit down in barren
soil. And
in two cases, where he actually had drilled on productive land, he
once had
ceased making hole only twenty-seven feet above the productive
formation and
another time failed to make a test of a sand that later produced
several
million barrels. But he could not help himself. He was only following
the
dictates of the vision in his mind. See how
different his behavior was in the discovery of the basin field. He saw
the
oil. He knew it was there. There was not the slightest doubt
in his
mind, and that is the way he acted. There was no resisting him this
time. His
vision was for production, and that is what resulted. Why? Why did he finally have a
positive vision after harboring a
negative one for so many years? Such a question could not be answered
with
certainty without making an intensive study of the man, but in all
probability
the debilitating and crippling factor was fear. Fear more than any
other
single thing warps and distorts our vision. Our oil driller most likely
was
afraid of failure, and his apprehension twisted his inner vision
from success
to defeat. He couldn’t win as long as the fear stayed with him.
Finally, when
he had reached the absolute bottom, when the business he loved had
rejected him
and the men in it no longer would hire him, fear simply left him.
Everything
bad had happened already, what more was there to fear? And in this
psychologically
relieved attitude, the Secret Self was able to get through the
mask of vanity,
and the ensuing vision inevitably brought success. MIND OVER MATTER “It is
computed,” wrote Jonathan Swift, “that eleven thousand
persons have, at
several times, suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at
the
smaller end.” The resistance of the human mind to change is amazing,
especially
when it appears so obvious that life itself is nothing more than
change.
Multitudes of people, many of them very intelligent, argue that all
cause is in
the physical world and that mentality only observes. They
seem determined to
go down to their deaths with this frightfully erroneous
viewpoint, even
though their own inner attitudes belie their stand, even though their
slogans extol
the power of mind over matter. On locker
room doors and conference room walls the framed and placarded slogans
emblazon
their messages: “A quitter never wins. A winner never quits.” “A team
that won’t
be beat, can’t be beat.” “Put your heart in it. All else will follow.”
“Make up
your mind, and you make up the future.” But these verbal expositions to
thoughtful
vision are regarded as having precedence only in such matters as team
effort,
to bind together the group for a purpose, and their tremendous
importance to
individual creativeness is largely overlooked. From the inner vision
all things
are done—the bridge is built, the tower constructed, the oil well
drilled, the
motion picture made, the book written, the picture painted,
music composed,
outer space probed, secrets of the atom exposed. There is
absolutely no such thing as accomplishment unless it is preceded
by a vision
of that accomplishment. You simply can’t reach across the table and
pick up a
dish unless you first have the mental image. All things come to all
people
according to the pictures that form in their minds, and the effort
that is
expended in this world to escape fates that are inevitable is
sufficient to construct
a tower to the sun. No amount of movement, of physical energy
expended, can
prevail against a wrong mental image. Similarly, the
possessor of the correct
mental image is guided to perform the work to be done,
effortlessly, almost
nonchalantly. Most of the struggling and striving in the world is done
by people
who are trapped into unwanted circumstances through incorrect mental
visualization,
and the fact that they visualize the very thing that they profess to
abhor is
the contradictory situation that is filling our psychiatrists’ couches. MASTERY OVER FATE Bernard
Spinoza wrote, “So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or
that, so
long is he determined not to do it; and consequently, so long is
it impossible
to him that he should do it.” The picture that forms in the mind,
whether for
good or ill, will deliver its inevitable consequence. The problem is
not with
the mental or spiritual fact of physical fulfillment of mental
visualization,
but rather of finding a key that will enable each person to cast up
mental
images at will, hold them until realization, and not have other images
intruded
by the recalcitrant subconscious, which so often runs contrary to the
wishes of
the conscious mind. In the deeper reaches of the human psyche the seeds
are
formed that motivate a whole life, and a man either accedes to or
takes command
of these invisible prompters. If he accedes, his life will be run from
a source
beyond his conscious control. If he takes command, he becomes
master of his
fate. Taking command is never as
simple as it sounds. It requires a firmness
and boldness that only few people innately possess. Most of us live as
complete
slaves to reaction, absolute victims of the commands of the
subconscious, and
we seldom if ever even think it possible that we can overcome our
feelings and
react in an entirely different way than circumstances would have
us do. For example,
if you participate in a test and defeat seems inevitable, you only make
it
certain by acceding. But if you keep alive your spirit by a vision of
victory,
by an absolute resistance to the importunities of defeat and
disaster, who
knows what miracles may occur? The mental vision that resists all
sensual
stimuli becomes at length a thing unto itself and its resolution as
objective
fact in the material world cries out for utterance and will not be
stifled. Nature’s
vast creativity springs from the infinite potentiality of the Secret
Self.
Anything possible of conception is sure to eventually be created as a
solid
material fact for all the world to witness. There is no such thing as
an idea
without a visible resolution, for the great plasticity of the Secret
Self
shapes every idea contained within it, and whoever is possessed of a
thought is
possessed of a thing as well, as long as he holds his image clear. CREATIVITY Creativeness
is not part of the surface self, of the ego, the conscious mind,
the physical
or sensual being. It emanates upward through the levels of
consciousness from
the Secret Self, takes shape and form through a power greatly beyond
and
infinitely more powerful than the small individual “I.” That part of a
man
which is most powerful of all is invisible, seems apart from him
completely, is
hidden in the deepest recesses of his being, is not callable by name,
is not
recognizable through the physical senses, cannot be coerced, but
responds
innately and completely to image. This is the great plastic Secret Self
from
which all things are made, the creative self of the universe,
maintaining a
sameness in all differentiations, being eternally one in the midst
of
multiplicity; this is the Secret Self within you, which is not
different from
you, which in final analysis is altogether you. You are not
conscious mind or
ego or memory or sensual being, but were born directly
from the mind that formulated and constructed
the universe, and you are not different from that mind but attached to
it by a
mental and spiritual construction that makes you and it the same. Abandonment
of the surface self and seeking self-balance in the deeper regions of
consciousness is the pathway to power and perfection in works. For
when a man
attunes himself to the life force and mental entity that gives him
consciousness and lives within him, then he takes on by a process of
identification
the effectiveness and potency of the infinite and eternal entity
from which
his individual life has sprung. His horizons expand, his consciousness
widens;
there wells up from secret and subterranean springs a constantly
increasing and
never-ceasing power for perfection and perfect understanding. His faith
is
placed with simplicity and unfailing trust in the inherent
power of the
Secret Self to return in material fact those mental images that live
within
him, and he need not have the key that unlocks the universe in order to
use
effectively this basic law. It bothers him not that there exist
doors in the
mental and spiritual realm that thus far have not yielded. He need not
know all
and understand all to use those truths he thus far has discovered, and
he lives
in the consciousness that life is a mental adventure and not a
physical
journey. KNOWLEDGE—THE GREAT LEVER We all have seen people achieve
great ends effortlessly. We have
seen others strive frantically toward some goal only to consistently
fall
short. We are assured on all sides that hard work makes the successful
man, yet
we discern almost immediately that hard work sometimes fails of
accomplishment
while fortune often smiles on the man who seems to make little effort
at all.
Shakespeare wrote, “There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken
at the flood
leads on to fortune.” The story is told of the man whose furnace
refused to
work and who subsequently called a repair man. The repair man struck
the
furnace a blow with his hammer, and it promptly resumed working.
He presented
a bill for one hundred dollars. “Outrageous,” sputtered the
irate
householder. “I want that bill itemized.” “All right,” answered
the repair
man. He scribbled on the bill, “Striking one blow with hammer—one
dollar.
Knowing where to strike—ninety-nine dollars.” It is not
how hard we work that matters, but what we get done. It is not the
wailing and
gnashing of teeth that is the show, but the things that are built and
accomplished. The knowledge of the simple lever six thousand years
ago might
have saved a million hours of backbreaking labor, and had television
existed in
the time of Christ a different shape indeed might have been given
the
Christian Church. Knowing where and when to strike, just as the repair
man so
aptly illustrated, is the goal to be sought, and not the energy to run
a
million circles around a field which does not need to be circled even
once.
Knowledge is the thing, not physical effort; all things exist because
of mental
causes, have risen in the physical world in response to ideas held in
mind.
Mind is first cause, and he who is guided by this knowledge
discovers the fountain
of power. Your
Secret Self is a giant self, dwarfing into nothingness your surface
mind and
ego. It is a self without limits in space and time, and anything is
possible to
it. Its manifestations on the human scene sometimes seem supernatural.
It
outcrops in our geniuses in those with “second sight,” in our artists,
our explorers,
our pioneers, our adventurers. Its presence may be intimately felt
in the
fields of parapsychology, extrasensory perception, precognition,
clairvoyance,
thought transference. It stands behind all human endeavor and
aspiration as
the guiding intelligence of evolution. Life is going somewhere high and
lofty
and worthwhile, and the path by which the heights are to be scaled is
safe and
secure and well-known. Only in partial knowledge is there confusion,
and only
through the separate and incomplete view of the surface self are we
rendered
impotent and afraid in a world that should be ours. The little mind
that sits
immediately behind our eyes has not the horizons nor the expanded
consciousness to see the larger picture, the worthier and greater goal
of the Secret Self. All individual
suffering, frustration, and failure stem from
the failure of the surface mind to find and properly identify itself with the Divine. In
isolating ourselves
from the true roots of our being, we are thrown out of kilter with the
power
and surety of the Supreme. By fancying ourselves to be
sense-minded only, we
are like the severed tail of a snake, possessed of movement still, but
senseless now, without purpose or entity, helter-skelter,
scratching out a
crazy pattern in the dust.
THE GIANT WITHIN We are one
body only, one mind only, one deep and abiding intelligence. We
are not tiny
infinitesimal parts of an infinite and incomprehensible whole, but
we are that
very whole, that entire mind, that great and vast intelligence from
which the
universe has evolved, and everything contained within the universe is
contained
within us, and if we truly understand ourselves we understand the world
and
everything in it. You can be
anything you want to be, do anything you want to do, tread any path you
will to
tread, become master of your fate, ordain your future, but you will not
do these
things by railing against circumstance, by throwing yourself
frantically
against events and persons simply because they do not seem to be
in accord
with your plans. Only by perceiving the hidden purpose behind events,
the true
motivations that actuate people, will you be able to attune yourself to
life,
to act in accord with the gigantic tides that bring the future. This
faculty is
yours once you have gleaned the existence of the Secret Self and
have set
about striving to live in accord with it rather than with the surface
self that
has moved you heretofore. We all aspire to goals, desire
to improve our understanding and
our abilities. We would not be alive if growth were not inherent in us.
But
oftentimes our growth becomes calcified through being ringed around
with
impermeable layers of selfishness and conceit. This selfishness is not
necessarily just acquisitiveness; it may even be exemplified by an
overwhelming
generosity; it is simply primary concern for the ego, a living by and
in
accordance with the little “I” that constitutes the average person’s
knowledge
of himself. Such conceit makes knowledge of self a constant judgment, a
comparison
with others, favorably or unfavorable. It feeds on flattery and
victory, is decimated
by criticism defeat. It has, no true existence, but
depends entirely
upon circumstance and the reactions those circumstances set up within
it. As a
consequence, it is always exultant or sad, for its impression of
itself is
that it is either better than or worse than everything that confronts
it. It
has absolutely no knowledge of equality THE ULTIMATE RESOURCE Breaking
through the limiting boundaries of the ego into the unimpaired
vision and
knowledge and joy of the Secret Self is the undoubted goal of
evolution, the purpose
of life. This transformation, truly a transfiguration of the mind
and spirit,
is not an absolute thing but a matter of degree, is partially
achieved at
this moment by thousands of living persons, is possible of limited
attainment
by anyone who lives. To exist immersed in the ego is to live a
restricted life,
to realize only a small fraction of your potentiality. Such
deliberate
subordination to the dictates of nature is a subjection to pain
and suffering
and death and decay. Such subjection is normal to lower forms of life,
seems
part of the plan by which the Secret Self is emerging from matter, but
when consciousness
has reached the point where it recognizes its imprisonment, when
it sees its
subjection to circumstance and pleasure and pain, then it must strive
to be
free, to establish a truer order for its development. It then must
break
through the barriers of its awareness, cease living in the ego and
attain the
widened horizons and powers of the Secret Self, or it will fall back
into the
inertia of the sensual nature, lose its capacity for growth and
development and
so cease to represent the Secret Self at all. To the person
trapped and
resigned to be trapped in the ego, there is no final end but suffering
and pain.
Only in the Divine lie
the ultimate resources that overcome all obstacles, and only in
seeking to
discover the Secret Self has a man firmly set foot on the one and only
path
that leads to success, serenity, and joy STRUGGLE AND SACRIFICE Nothing,
of course, can be accomplished without a fight. Life itself is a
struggle, and
each of us enters it daily. It is simply a question of where to expend
the
effort: pursuing the material wraiths of the physical world that
constantly
seem to elude us or concentrate on an inner resource that controls the
outer
world. It is a wise man who expends his energies developing his
consciousness.
He shortly will find that all the aspects of the world have assumed an
order
and a benignity he would not have thought possible. All things appear
to do his
bidding, not because he truly bids them, but because he
understands them. It
is this knowledge, attained by inner perception, of the potentiality of
each
thing and circumstance, that leads to beneficent power, that
allows a man to
move through the most intense conflicts with serenity and surety. He
sees the
thing to be done because he knows the outcome that must be achieved,
and
because of this inherent perception of the laws of life and
nature, he appears
to be modeling each event, shaping each thing, yet it is not he who
does this
but the Secret Self within him, to which he has entrusted himself
completely
and which guides his steps and actions with omnipotent assurance. Will you have the power and
assurance and serenity of the Secret
Self? Then there is something you must give up. You must give up the
ego, that
thing within you that you always have thought to be your very self. You
must
seek to shed that sense of separateness that is a product of your
surface mind
and to search deep within your consciousness for the pure core of being
that is
the self of all things. It will not be easy. The sensual nature with
its
constantly distracting stimuli brings daily clarion calls from the
outer world.
But if your life has provided you full measure of pain and
frustration from
chasing these tempters and deceivers, then you will face them with
resistance
and resolve to pursue them no more. The path to power lies within you.
All
things will be found there. The fight is not between the world and you,
but between
your ego and your true self. Simply choose to find your true self, and
in the
end you cannot lose.
|