But off on one side, apart from the rest, lay a harmless looking, wedge-shaped instrument marked “Discouragement.” It was old and worn looking, but it was priced far above all the rest. When asked the reason why, the devil replied:
“Because I can use this one so much more easily than the others. No one knows that it belongs to me, so with it I can open doors that are tight bolted against the others. Once I get inside I can use any tool that suits me best.”
No one ever knows how small is the margin between failure and success. Frequently the two are separated only by the width of that one word — discouragement. Ask Ford, ask Edison, ask any successful man and he will tell you how narrow is the chasm that separates failure from success, how surely it can be bridged by perseverance and faith.
Cultivate confidence in yourself. Cultivate the feeling that you ARE succeeding. Know that you have unlimited power to do every right thing. Know that with Universal Mind to draw upon, no position is too difficult, and no problem too hard. “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.” When you put limitations upon yourself, when you doubt your ability to meet any situation, you are placing a limit upon Universal Mind, for “The Father that is within me, He doeth the works.”
With that knowledge of your power, with that confidence in the unlimited resources of Universal Mind, it is easy enough to show initiative, it is easy enough to find the courage to start things.
You have a right to dominion over all things — over your body, your environment, your business, your health. Develop these three requisites and you will gain that dominion. Remember that you are a part of Universal Mind, and that the part shares every property of the whole. Remember that, as the spark of electricity to the thunderbolt, so is your mind to Universal Mind. Whatever of good you may desire of life, whatever qualification, whatever position, you have only to work for it whole heartedly, confidently, with singleness of purpose — and you can get it.
Chapter 13 — That Old Witch: Bad Luck
Has that old witch — bad luck — ever camped on your doorstep? Have ill health, misfortune and worry ever seemed to dog your footsteps?
If so, you will be interested in knowing that YOU were the procuring cause of all that trouble. For fear is merely creative thought in negative form.
Remember back in 1920 how fine the business outlook seemed, how everything looked rosy and life flowed along like a song? We had crops worth ten billions of dollars. We had splendid utilities, great railways, almost unlimited factory capacity. Everyone was busy. The government had a billion dollars in actual money. The banks were sound. The people were well employed. Wages were good. Prosperity was general. Then something happened. A wave of fear swept over the country. The prosperity could not last. People wouldn’t pay such high prices. There was too much inflation. What was the result?
As Job put it in the long ago, “The thing that I greatly feared has come upon me.”
The prosperity vanished almost over night. Failures became general. Hundreds of thousands were thrown out of work. And all because of panic, fear. Tis true that readjustments were necessary. Tis true that prices were too high, that inventories were too big, that values generally were inflated.
But it wasn’t necessary to burst the balloon to let out the gas. There are orderly natural processes of readjustment that bring things to their proper level with the least harm to anyone.
But fear — panic — knows no reason. It brings into being overnight the things that it fears. It is the greatest torment of humanity. It is about all there is to Hell. Fear is, in short, the devil. It causes most of the sin, disaster, disease and misery of the world. It is the only thing you can put into business, which won’t draw dividends in either fun or dollars. If you guess right, you don’t get any satisfaction out of it.
The real cause of all sickness is fear. You image some disease in your thought, and your body proceeds to build upon this model that you hold before it. You have seen how fear makes the face pallid, how it first stops the beating of the heart, then sets it going at trip-hammer pace. Fear changes the secretions. Fear halts the digestion. Fear puts lines and wrinkles into the face. Fear turns the hair gray.
Mind controls every function of the human body. If the thought you hold before your subconscious mind is the fear of disease, of colds or catarrh, of fever or indigestion, those are the images your subconscious mind will work out in your body. For your body itself is merely so much matter — an aggregation of protons and electrons, just as the table in front of you is an aggregation of these same buttons of force, but with a different density. Take away your mind, and your body is just as inert, just as lifeless, and just as senseless, as the table. Every function of your body, from the beating of your heart to the secretions in your glands, is controlled by mind. The digestion of your food is just as much a function of your mind as the moving of your finger. So the all-important thing is not what food you put into your stomach, but what your mind decides shall be done with it. If your mind feels that certain food should make you sick, it will make you sick. If, on the other hand, your mind decides that though the food has no nutritive value, there is no reason why unintelligent matter should make you sick, mind will eliminate that food without harm or discomfort to you.
Your body is just like clay in the hands of a potter. Your mind can make of it what it will. The clay has nothing to say about what form it shall take. Neither have your head, your heart, your lungs, your digestive organs anything to say about how conditions shall affect them. They do not decide whether they shall be dizzy or diseased or lame. It is mind that makes this decision. They merely conform to it AFTER mind has decided it. Matter has undergone any and every condition without harm, when properly sustained by mind. And what it has done once, it can do again.
When you understand that your muscles, your nerves, your bones have no feeling or intelligence of their own, when you learn that they react to conditions only as mind directs that they shall react, you will never again think or speak of any organ as imperfect, as weak or ailing. You will never again complain of tired bodies, aching muscles, or frayed nerves. On the contrary, you will hold steadfast to thoughts of exhaustless strength, of super-abundant vitality, knowing that, as Shakespeare said — “There is nothing, either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
Never fear disaster, for the fear of it is an invitation to disaster to come upon you. Fear being vivid, easily impresses itself upon the sub-conscious mind. And by so impressing itself, it brings into being the thing that is feared. It is the Frankenstein monster that we all create at times, and which, created, and turns to rend its creator. Fear that something you greatly prize will be lost and the fear you feel with creates the very means whereby you will lose it.
Fear is the Devil. It is the ravening lion roaming the earth seeking whom it may devour. The only safety from it is to deny it. The only refuge is in the knowledge that it has no power other than the power you give to it.
He Whom a Dream Hath Possessed
You fear debt. So your mind concentrates upon it and brings about greater debts. You fear loss. And by visualizing that loss you bring it about.
The only remedy for fear is to know that evil has no power — that it is a non-entity — merely a lack of something. You fear ill health, when if you would concentrate that same amount of thought upon good health you would insure the very condition you fear to lose. Functional disturbances are caused solely by the mind through wrong thinking. The remedy for them is a not drug, but right thinking, for the trouble is not in the organs but in the mind. Farnsworth in his “Practical Psychology” tells of a man who had conceived the idea when a boy that the eating of cherries and milk together had made him sick. He was very fond of both, but always had to be careful not to eat them together, for whenever he did he had been ill. Mr. Farnsworth explained to him that there was no reason for such illness, because all milk sours anyway just as soon as it reaches the stomach. As a matter of fact it cannot be digested until it does sour. He then treated the man mentally for this wrong