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- Herausgeber: e-artnow
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
This carefully crafted ebook: "The Miracles of Right Thought (Unabridged)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. In words of the author this book teaches us the importance of having the 'right' thoughts about ourselves. It teaches that we should strangle every idea of deficiency, imperfection, or inferiority, and however much our apparent conditions of discord, weaknesses, poverty, and ill-health may seem to contradict, cling tenaciously to our vision of perfection. A positive outlook certainly goes a long way in overcoming fear and being happy. Spread over fifteen chapters and a conversational way of writing, it would surely interest those who are looking for a well-rounded, successful life. Dr. Orison Swett Marden (1848-1924) was an American inspirational author who wrote about achieving success in life and founded SUCCESS magazine in 1897. He is often considered as the father of the modern-day inspirational talks and writings and his words make sense even to this day. In his books he discussed the common-sense principles and virtues that make for a well-rounded, successful life. Excerpt: "What we yearn for, earnestly desire and strive to bring about, tends to become a reality. Our ideals are the foreshadowing outlines of realities behind them—the substance of the things hoped for."
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The Miracles of Right Thought
(Unabridged)
Table of Contents
Preface
The demand during its first two years for nearly an edition a month of Peace, Power, and Plenty, the author’s last book and its re-publication in England, Germany, and France, together with the hundreds of letters received from readers, many of whom say that it has opened up a new world of possibilities to them by enabling them to discover and make use of forces within themselves which they never before knew they possessed, all seem to be indications of a great hunger of humanity for knowledge of what we may call the new gospel of optimism and love, the philosophy of sweetness and light, which aims to show how people can put themselves beyond the possibility of self-wreckage from ignorance, deficiencies, weaknesses, and even vicious tendencies, and which promises long-looked-for relief from the slavery of poverty, limitation, ill-health, and all kinds of success and happiness enemies.
The author’s excuse for putting out this companion volume, The Miracle of Right Thought, is the hope of arousing the reader to discover the wonderful forces in the Great Within of themselves which, if they could unlock and utilize, would lift them out of the region of anxiety and worry, eliminate most, if not all, of the discords and frictions of life, and enable them to make of themselves everything they ever imagined they could and longed to become.
The book teaches the divinity of right desire; it tries to show that the Creator never mocked us with yearnings for that which we have no ability or possibility of attaining; that our heart longings and aspirations are prophecies, forerunners, indications of the existence of the obtainable reality, that there is an actual powerful creative force in our legitimate desires, in believing with all our hearts that, no matter what the seeming obstacles, we shall be what we were intended to be and do what we were made to do; in visualizing, affirming things as we would like to have them, as they ought to be; in holding the ideal of that which we wish to come true, and only that, the ideal of the man or woman we would like to become, in thinking of ourselves as absolutely perfect beings possessing superb health, a magnificent body, a vigorous constitution, and a sublime mind.
It teaches that we should strangle every idea of deficiency, imperfection, or inferiority, and however much our apparent conditions of discord, weaknesses, poverty, and ill-health may seem to contradict, cling tenaciously to our vision of perfection, to the divine image of ourselves, the ideal which the Creator intended for His children; should affirm vigorously that there can be no inferiority or depravity about the man God made, for in the truth of our being we are perfect and immortal; because our mental attitude, what we habitually think, furnishes a pattern which the life processes are constantly weaving, outpicturing in the life.
The book teaches that fear is the great human curse, that it blights more lives, makes more people unhappy and unsuccessful than any other one thing; that worry-thoughts, fear-thoughts, are so many malignant forces within us poisoning the very sources of life, destroying harmony, ruining efficiency, while the opposite thoughts heal, soothe instead of irritate, and increase efficiency and multiply mental power; that every cell in the body suffers or is a gainer, gets a life impulse or a death impulse, from every thought that enters the mind, for we tend to grow into the image of that which we think about most, love the best; that the body is really our thoughts, moods, convictions objectified, outpictured, made visible to the eye. “The Gods we worship write their names on our faces.” The face is carved from within by invisible tools; our thoughts, our moods, our emotions are the chisels.
It is the table of contents of our life history; a bulletin board upon which is advertised what has been going on inside of us.
The author believes that there is no habit which will bring so much of value to the life as that of always carrying an optimistic, hopeful attitude of really expecting that things are going to turn out well with us and not ill, that we are going to succeed and not fail, are going to be happy and not miserable.
He points out that most people neutralize a large part of their efforts because their mental attitude does not correspond with their endeavor, so that although working for one thing, they are really expecting something else, and what we expect, we tend to get; that there is no philosophy or science by which an individual can arrive at the success goal when they are facing the other way, when every step they take is on the road to failure, when they talk like a failure, act like a failure, for prosperity begins in the mind and is impossible while the mental attitude is hostile to it.
No one can become prosperous while they really expect or half expect to be always poor, for holding the poverty-thought keeps them in touch with poverty-producing conditions.
The author tries to show the person who has been groping blindly after a mysterious, misunderstood God, thought to dwell in some far-off realm, that God is right inside of them, nearer to them than hands and feet, closer than their heartbeat or breath, and that they literally live, move, and have their being in Him; that man is mighty or weak, successful or unsuccessful, harmonious or discordant, in proportion to the completeness of his conscious oneness with the Power that made him, heals his wounds and hurts, and sustains him every minute of his existence; that there is but one creative principle running through the universe, one life, one truth, one reality; that this power is divinely beneficent, that we are a necessary, inseparable part of this great principle-current which is running God-ward.
The book teaches that everybody ought to be happier than the happiest of us are now; that our lives were intended to be infinitely richer and more abundant than at present; that we should have plenty of everything which is good for us; that the lack of anything which is really necessary and desirable does not fit the constitution of any right-living human being, and that we shorten our lives very materially through our own false thinking, our bad living, and our old-age convictions, and that to be happy and attain the highest efficiency, one must harmonize with the best, the highest thing in them.
O. S. M. (December 1910.)
Chapter I. The Divinity of Desire
And longing molds in clay what Life carves in the marble real,
Your ambition, not your worded prayer, is your real creed. —Lowell.
No joy for which thy hungering soul has panted,
No hope it cherishes through waiting years,
But, if thou dost deserve it, shall be granted;
For with each passionate wish the blessing nears.
The thing thou cravest so waits in the distance,
Wrapt in the silence unseen and dumb
Essential to thy soul and thy existence,
Live worthy of it, call, and it shall come. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
Whatever the soul is taught to expect, that it will build.
Our heart longings, our soul aspirations, are something more than mere vaporings of the imagination or idle dreams. They are prophecies, predictions, couriers, forerunners of things which can become realities. They are indicators of our possibilities. They measure the height of our aim, the range of our efficiency.
What we yearn for, earnestly desire and strive to bring about, tends to become a reality. Our ideals are the foreshadowing outlines of realities behind them—the substance of the things hoped for.
The sculptor knows that his ideal is not a mere fantasy of his imagination, but that it is a prophecy, a foreshadowing of that which will carve itself in “marble real”
When we begin to desire a thing, to yearn for it with all our hearts, we begin to establish relationship with it in proportion to the strength and persistency of our longing and intelligent effort to realize it.
The trouble with us is that we live too much in the material side of life, and not enough in the ideal. We should learn to live mentally in the ideal which we wish to make real. If we want, for example, to keep young, we should live in the mental state of youth; to be beautiful, we should live more in the mental state of beauty.
The advantage of living in the ideal is that all imperfections, physical, mental, and moral, are eliminated. We cannot see old age because old age is incompleteness, decrepitude, and these qualities cannot exist in the ideal. In the ideal, everything is youthful and beautiful; there is no suggestion of decay, of ugliness. The habit of living in the ideal, therefore, helps us wonderfully because it gives a perpetual pattern of the perfection for which we are striving. It increases hope and faith in our ultimate perfection and divinity, because in our vision we see glimpses of the reality which we instinctively feel must sometime, somewhere, be ours.
The habit of thinking and asserting things as we would like to have them, or as they ought to be, and of stoutly claiming our wholeness or completeness—believing that we cannot lack any good thing because we are one with the All Good,—supplies the pattern which the life-processes within us will reproduce.
Keep constantly in your mind the ideal of the man or woman you would like to become. Hold the ideal of your efficiency and wholeness, and instantly strangle every disease image or suggestion of inferiority. Never allow yourself to dwell upon your weaknesses, deficiencies, or failures. Holding firmly the ideal and struggling vigorously to attain it will help you to realize it.
There is a tremendous power in the habit of expectancy, of believing that we shall realize our ambition; that our dreams will come true.
There is no more uplifting habit than that of bearing a hopeful attitude, of believing that things are going to turn out well and not ill; that we are going to succeed and not fail; that no matter what mayor may not happen, we are going to be happy.
There is nothing else so helpful as the carrying of this optimistic, expectant attitude—the attitude which always looks for and expects the best, the highest, the happiest—and never allowing oneself to get into a pessimistic, discouraged mood.
Believe with all your heart that you will do what you were made to do. Never for an instant harbor a doubt of it. Drive it out of your mind if it seeks entrance. Entertain only the friend thoughts or ideals of the thing you are determined to achieve. Reject all thought enemies, all discouraging moods—everything which would even suggest failure or unhappiness.
It does not matter what you are trying to do or to be, always assume an expectant, hopeful, optimistic attitude regarding it. You will be surprised to see how you will grow in all your faculties, and how you will improve generally.
When the mind has once formed the habit of holding cheerful, happy, prosperous pictures, it will not be easy to form the opposite habit. If our children could only acquire this one habit, it would revolutionize our civilization very quickly and advance our life standards immeasurably. A mind so trained would always be in a condition to exercise its maximum power and overcome in harmony, unkindness and the hundred and one enemies of our peace, comfort, efficiency, and success.
The very habit of expecting that the future is full of good things for you, that you are going to be prosperous and happy, that you are going to have a fine family, a beautiful home, and are going to stand for something, is the best kind of capital with which to start life.
What we try persistently to express we tend to achieve, even though it may not seem likely or even possible. If we always try to express the ideal, the thing we would like to come true in our lives, whether it be robust health, a noble character, or a superb career, if we visualize it as vividly as possible and try with all our might to realize it, it is much more likely to come to us than if we do not.
Many people allow their desires and longings to fade out. They do not realize that the very intensity and persistency of desire increases the power to realize their dreams. The constant effort to keep the desire alive increases the capacity to realize the vision.
It does not matter how improbable or how far away this realization may seem, or how dark the prospects may be, if we visualize them as best we can, as vividly as possible, hold tenaciously to them and vigorously struggle to attain them, they will gradually become actualized, realized in the life. But a desire, a longing without endeavor, a yearning abandoned or held indifferently will vanish without realization.
It is only when desire crystallizes into resolve, however, that it is effective. It is the desire coupled with the vigorous determination to realize it that produces the creative power. It is the yearning, the longing and striving together, that produce results.
We are constantly increasing or decreasing our efficiency by the quality and character of our thoughts, emotions, and ideals. If we could always hold the ideal of wholeness and think of ourselves as perfect beings, even as He is perfect, any tendency to disease anywhere would be neutralized by this restorative healing force.
Think and say only that which you wish to become true.
People who are always excusing themselves; constantly saying that they are tired, used up, played out, “all in,” that they are all out of kilter somewhere; that they are always unfortunate, unlucky; that fate seems to be against them; that they are poor and always expect to be; that they have worked hard and tried to get ahead, but could not, little realize that they are etching these black pictures—enemies of their peace, happiness, and success, and the very things which they ought to wipe out of their minds forever—deeper and deeper into their consciousness, and are making it all the more certain that they will be realized in their lives. Never for an instant admit that you are sick, weak, or ill unless you wish to experience these conditions, for the very thinking of them helps them to get a stronger hold upon you.
We are all the products of our own thoughts. Whatever we concentrate upon, that we are. The daily habit of picturing oneself as a superb man or woman sent to earth with a divine mission, and with the ability and the opportunity to deliver it grandly, gives a marvelous confidence, uplifting power and perpetual encouragement.
If you wish to improve yourself in any particular, visualize the quality as vividly and as tenaciously as possible and hold a superior ideal along the line of your ambition. Keep this persistently in the mind until you feel its uplift and realization in your life. Gradually the weak, imperfect man, which mistakes, sins and vicious living have made, will be replaced by the ideal man; your other, better God-self.
Every life follows its ideal; is colored by it; takes on its character; becomes like it. You can read a man’s character if you know his ideal, for this always dominates his life.
Our ideals are great character-molders, and have a tremendous life-shaping influence. Our heart’s habitual desire soon shows itself in the face; out pictures itself in the life. We cannot long keep from the face that which habitually lives in our minds.
We develop the quality of the thought, emotion, ideal, or ambition which takes the strongest hold upon us. Therefore, you should let everything in you point toward superiority, nobility. Let there be an upward trend in your thinking. Resolve that you will never have anything to do with inferiority in your thoughts or your actions; that whatever you do shall bear the stamp of excellence.
This up reaching of the mind, this stretching of the mentality toward higher ideals and grander things, has an elevating, transforming influence which tends to lift the whole life to higher levels.
Human life is so constructed that we live largely upon hope; the faith that runs ahead and sees what the physical eye cannot see.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the outline of the image itself; the real substance, not merely a mental image. There is something back of the faith, back of the hope, back of the heart yearnings; there is a reality to match our legitimate longing.
What we believe is coming to us is a tremendous creative motive. The dream of home, of prosperity, the expectancy of being a person of influence, of standing for something, of carrying weight in our community, all these things are powerful creative motives.
Your whole thought current must be set in the direction of your life purpose.
The great miracles of civilization are wrought by thought concentration. Live in the very soul of expectation of better things, in the conviction that something large, grand, and beautiful will await you if your efforts are intelligent, if your mind is kept in a creative condition and you struggle upward to your goal. Live in the conviction that you are eternally progressing, advancing toward something higher, better, in every atom of your being.
Many people have an idea that it is dangerous to indulge their dreaming faculties, their imagination, very much, for fear that in doing so they would become impracticable; but these faculties are just as sacred as any others we possess. They were given us for a divine purpose; so that we could get glimpses of intangible realities. They enable us to live in the ideal, even when we are compelled to work in the midst of a disagreeable or inhospitable environment.
Our dreaming capacity gives us a peep into the glorious realities that await us further on. It is the evidence of things possible to us.
Building air castles should no longer be looked upon as an idle, meaningless pastime. We first build our castles in our consciousness, picture them in detail in our ambition, before we put foundations under them and reality into them.
Dreaming is not always castle-building. Every real castle, every home, every building was an air castle first. Legitimate dreaming is creative; it is bringing into reality our desires; the things for which we long and hope. A building would be impossible without the plans of an architect; it must be created mentally. The architect sees behind the plans the building in all its perfection and beauty.
Whatever comes to us in life we create first in our mentality. As the building is a reality in all its details in the architect’s mind before a stone or brick is laid, so we create mentally everything which later becomes a reality in our achievement.
Our visions are the plans of the possible life structure; but they will end in plans if we do not follow them up with a vigorous effort to make them real; just as the architect’s plans will end in his drawings if they are not followed up and made real by the builder.
All men and women who have achieved great things have been dreamers, and what they have accomplished has been just in proportion to the vividness, the energy and persistency with which they visualized their ideals; held to their dreams and struggled to make them come true.
Do not give up your dream because it is apparently not being realized; because you cannot see it coming true. Cling to your vision with all the tenacity you can muster. Keep it bright; do not let the bread-and-butter side of life cloud your ideal or dim it. Keep in an ambition-arousing atmosphere. Read the books which will stimulate your ambition. Get close to people who have done what you are trying to do, and try to absorb the secret of their success.
This mental visualizing of the ideal as vividly and as sharply as possible is the mental molding of the thing that will finally match your vision with its reality; that will make your dream come true.
Take a little time before retiring at night and get by yourself. Sit quietly and think and dream to your heart’s content. Do not be afraid of your vision, or of your power to dream, for “without a vision the people perish.” The faculty to dream was not given to mock you. There is a reality back of it. It is a divine gift intended to give you a glimpse of the grand things in store for you and to lift you out of the common into the uncommon; out of hampering, iron conditions into ideal ones, and to show you that these things can become realities in your life.
These glimpses into paradise are intended to keep us from getting discouraged by our failures and disappointments.
I do not mean fanciful, ephemeral pipe dreaming, but real, legitimate desire and the sacred longings of the soul, which are given us as constant reminders that we can make our lives sublime; that no matter how disagreeable or unfriendly our surroundings may be, we can lift ourselves into the ideal conditions which we see in our vision.
There is a divinity behind our legitimate desires.
By the desires that have divinity in them, I do not refer to the things that we want but do not need; I do not refer to the desires that turn to dead-sea fruit on our lips or to ashes when eaten, but to the legitimate desires of the soul for the realization of those ideals, the longing for full, complete self- expression, for the time and opportunity for the weaving of the pattern shown us in the moment of our highest transfiguration.
“A man will remain a rag picker as long as he has only a rag picker’s vision.”
Our mental attitude, our heart’s desire, is our perpetual prayer which Nature answers. She takes it for granted that we desire what our heart asks for—that what we want we are headed toward, and she helps us to it. People little realize that their desires are their perpetual prayers—not head prayers, but heart prayers—and that they are granted.
We are all conscious that there accompanies us through life a divine messenger, given to protect and direct us; a messenger who will answer all our interrogations. No one is mocked with the yearning for that which they have no ability to attain. If he or she holds the right mental attitude and struggles earnestly, honestly toward their goal, they will reach it, or at least approximate to it.
There is a tremendous creative, producing power in the perpetual focusing of the mind along the line of the desire, the ambition. It develops a marvelous power to attract, to create the thing we long for.
“The thing we long for, that we are for one transcendent moment.”
Our heart yearnings inspire our creative energies to do the things we long for. They are a constant tonic to our faculties and increase our ability, tending to make our dreams come true. Nature is a great one-price storekeeper who hands us out what we ask for if we pay the price. Our thoughts are like roots which reach out in every direction into the cosmic ocean of formless energy, and these thought-roots set in motion vibrations like themselves and attract the affinities of our desires and ambitions,
The bird does not have an instinct to fly South in winter without a real South to match it; nor has the Creator given to us these heart yearnings, soul longings for a larger, completer life, for an opportunity for a full expression of our possibilities, nor the longing for immortality, without a reality to match them.
Everything in the vegetable world, our flowers, our fruits, come to their natural, flowering, fruitage and ripeness at the appointed time; the winter does not surprise the buds before they have had an opportunity to open up; the fruit is ready to drop off the trees before the snow comes; the growth is not stunted.
But if we should find when the winter came that all our fruit was still green, that the flowers were still in bud, and that instead of having developed they were cut off by the cold, we would realize that there was something at fault somewhere. And when we find that not one out of the hundreds of millions of human beings ever ripens into completeness, is never even half developed before cut off by death, we know here also something is wrong.
The windfalls which we see on every hand under the life tree are not normal. There is something wrong when men and women inheriting God-like qualities and capable of infinite possibilities fall off the life tree before they are half matured.
We feel the same protest that the windfall apple feels against having its life blighted and cut off before it has had time to ripen, to develop its possibilities—the same protest that the stalwart oak, still sleeping in possibility in the acorn which is just beginning to sprout, feels when it is ruthlessly torn from the soil.
Even the men most richly endowed with ability, education, and opportunity, even the giants of the race, after the completest life possible, feel, as they stand on the edge of the grave, that they are but human acorns with all their possibilities still in them, just beginning to sprout.
But it will not always be thus. All analogy teaches that human life will eventually have an opportunity for its complete blossoming, full fruitage, untrammeled self-expression. There will, if we follow our vision, be a time and an opportunity for the blossoming of our desires, the fulfillment of our ambition, the ripening of our ideals, for they are the petals in the closed bud which will find an opportunity, sometime, somewhere, to open up and fling out their fragrance and beauty without blight or bruise to strangle growth.
Our instinctive yearning for the time and opportunity for the complete, untrammeled unfoldment of our powers; our sense of the unfairness, the unfitness of being cut off before we have had half enough time in which to mature, to ripen—all these are greater evidences that there are realities to match these heart longings and soul yearnings that have ever been printed in any book.
We are beginning to see that there is material in every normal being to make the ideal perfect man, the perfect woman. If we could only mentally hold the perfect pattern, the perfect ideal persistently, so that it would become the dominant mental attitude, it would soon be woven into the life and we should become perfect human beings.
The divine injunction to be perfect, even as He is perfect, was not given man to mock him. The possibility of our waking in His likeness is literally true.
Chapter II. Success and Happiness are for You
If a man thinks sickness, poverty, and misfortune, he will meet them and claim them all eventually as his own. But he will not acknowledge the close relationship—he will deny his own children and declare they were sent to him by an evil fate.
Poverty is the hell of which most modem Englishmen are most afraid. —Carlyle.
Poverty is the open-mouthed hell which yawns beneath civilization. —Henry George.
Wealth is created mentally first.
The stream of plenty will not flow toward the stingy, parsimonious, doubting thought.
Holding the poverty thought keeps one in touch with poverty producing conditions.
No man has a right, unless he cannot help himself, to remain where he will be constantly subjected to the cramping, ambition blighting influences and great temptations of poverty. His self-respect demands that he should get out of such an environment. It is his duty to put himself in a position of dignity and independence, where he will not be liable at any moment to be a burden to his friends in case of sickness or other emergencies, or where those depending on him may suffer.
It is the poverty attitude, the narrowness of our thought that has limited us. If we had larger and grander conceptions of life, of our birthright; if, instead of whining, crawling, grumbling, sneaking and apologizing, we were to stand erect and claim our kingship, demand our rich inheritance, the inheritance which is an abundance of all that is good and beautiful and true, we should live far completer, fuller lives. We should not be so poverty-stricken but for the narrowness of our faith, the meanness of our conception of our birthright. There are plenty of evidences in man’s construction and environment that he was made for infinitely grander and superber things than even the most fortunate of men now possess and enjoy.
Almost every wealthy man in this country will tell you that his greatest satisfaction and happiest days were when he was emerging from poverty into a competency; when he first felt the tonic from the swelling of his small savings towards the stream of fortune, and knew that want would no longer dog his steps. It was then he began to see ahead of him leisure, self-development, self-culture, or perhaps study and travel, and to feel that those whom he loved would be lifted from the clutches of poverty. Comforts were taking the place of stern necessities and blunting drudgery, and he realized that he had the power to lift himself above himself, that henceforth he would be of consequence in the world; that he might have pictures and music and books, luxuries for his home, and that his children might not have to struggle quite as hard for an education as he had. Then he first felt the power to give them and others a little start in the world; felt the tonic of growth, the little circle about him expanding into a larger sphere, broadening into a wider horizon.
There are plenty of evidences that we were made for grand things, sublime things; for abundance and not for poverty. Lack and want do not fit man’s divine nature. The trouble with us is that we do not have half enough faith in the good that is in store for us. We do not dare fling out our whole soul’s desire, to follow the leading of our divine hunger and ask without stint for the abundance that is our birthright. We ask little things, and we expect little things, pinching our desires and limiting our supply. Not daring to ask to the full of our soul’s desire, we do not open our minds sufficiently to allow a great inflow of good things. Our mentality is so restricted, our self-expression so repressed, that we think in terms of stinginess and limitation. We do not fling out our soul’s desire with that abundant faith which trusts implicitly, and which receives accordingly.
The Power that made and sustains us gives liberally, abundantly, not stingily, to everybody and everything. There is no restriction, no limitation, no loss to anybody from His abundant giving.
We are not dealing with a Creator who is impoverished by granting our requests. It is His nature to give, to flood us with our heart’s desires. He does not have less because we ask much. The rose does not ask the sun for only a tiny bit of its light and heat, for it is the sun’s nature to throw it out to everything which will absorb it and drink it in. The candle loses nothing of its light by lighting another candle. We do not lose but increase our capacity for friendship by being friendly, by giving abundantly of our love.
One of the great secrets of life is to learn how to transfer the full current of divine force to ourselves, and how to use this force effectively. If man can find this law of divine transference, he will multiply his efficiency a million fold, because he will then be a co-operator, co-creator with divinity, on a scale of which he has never before dreamed.
When we recognize that everything comes from the great Infinite Supply, and that it flows to us freely, when we get into perfect tune with the Infinite, when the brute has been educated out of us and the dross of dishonesty, selfishness, impurity, burned out of us, we shall see God without these scales, which make us blind to good; we shall see God, (good,) and we shall know good, for only the pure in heart can see God.
When unfairness, a desire to take advantage of our brothers and sisters, is removed from our lives, we shall get so close to God that all of the good things in the universe will flow to us spontaneously. The trouble IS that we restrict the in-flow by wrong acts, wrong thoughts.
Every vicious deed is an opaque veil, another film over our eyes so that we cannot see God (good). Every wrong step separates us from Him.
When we learn the art of seeing opulently, instead of stingily, when we learn to think without limits, how not to cramp ourselves by our limiting thought, we shall find that the thing we are seeking is seeking us, and that it will meet us half way.
John Burroughs beautifully expresses this in his poem “Waiting”:
Serene, I fold my hands and wait, Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea; I rave no more 'gainst time or fate, For, lo! my own shall come to me.
I stay my haste, I make delays, For what avails this eager pace? I stand amid the eternal ways, And what is mine shall know my face.
Asleep, awake, by night or day, The friends I seek are seeking me; No wind can drive my bark astray, Nor change the tide of destiny.
What matter if I stand alone? I wait with joy the coming years; My heart shall reap where it hath sown, And garner up its fruit of tears.
The waters know their own and draw The brook that springs in yonder height; So flows the good with equal law Unto the soul of pure delight.
The stars come nightly to the sky; The tidal wave unto the sea; Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high, Can keep my own away from me.
Do not be forever apologizing for your lack of this or that. Every time you say that you have nothing fit to wear, that you never have things that other people have, that you never go anywhere or do things that other people do, you are simply etching the black picture deeper and deeper. As long as you recite these unfortunate details and dwell upon your disagreeable experiences, your mentality will not attract the thing you are after, will not bring that which will remedy your hard conditions. The mental attitude, the mental picturing, must correspond with the reality we seek.
Prosperity begins in the mind, and is impossible with a mental attitude which is hostile to it. We cannot attract opulence mentally by a poverty-stricken attitude which is driving away what we long for. It is fatal to work for one thing and to expect something else. No matter how much one may long for prosperity, a miserable, poverty-stricken mental attitude will close all the avenues to it. The weaving of the web is bound to follow the pattern. Opulence and prosperity cannot come in through poverty-thought and failure-thought channels. They must be created mentally first. We must think prosperity before we can come to it.
How many take it for granted that there are plenty of good things in this world for others, comforts, luxuries, fine houses, good clothes, opportunity for travel, leisure, but not for them! They settle down into the conviction that these things do not belong to them, but are for those in a very different class.
