It is encouraging, too, that thinkers and investigators have traced the origin of our thought enemies back to their sources and have thus reduced their number.
“It is not necessary to engage in battle the small army of lesser passions,” says Horace Fletcher, “if you concentrate your efforts against anger and worry, for they are all children of these parents. Oppose them with a bold front; make one heroic stand against them, and they and all their children will fly. Disown them once and the ability to readopt them will have disappeared with them.” In a later book, Mr. Fletcher calls anger and worry only forms of fear, and W. W. Atkinson also says: “Worry is the child of Fear, and bears a strong family resemblance to its parent. Treat the Fear family as you would any other kind of vermin—get rid of the old ones before they have a chance to have progeny.” So once we gain the power of concentration we must cultivate perfect fearlessness and confidence, with which go cheerfulness, efficiency, and, as a sure result, happiness and prosperity.
The following rules in “Power of Will,” by Frank C. Haddock, are practical and suggestive, and may well close this chapter :
“Resolutely, persistently, and intelligently maintain a true and psychic field by constant exercise of strong will power toward all high realities: beautiful objects, right ideas, health, peace, truth, success, altruism, right-minded persons, the best literature, art, science, the noblest movements and institutions of the times, and a true religion.
“In contact with other people, maintain in your personal atmosphere a perfect and constant calm. Let this be so complete that it may not betray the effort to secure it, either in disturbed ether waves, or in movements which the other person’s subconsciousness will recognize as coolness or suppressed hostility.
“Avoid all excitement.
“Send out no antagonisms.
“Reveal to the inner consciousness of other people nothing in your mind calculated to injure their feelings.
“Banish from your field all feelings of contempt and ridicule.
“Permit no vibrations of anger or irritation to escape into your field.
“Banish absolutely all thought waves of fear for persons with whom you are dealing.
“Banish all thought waves of distrust as to success with such persons.
“Maintain a personal atmosphere that is surcharged with the dynamic force of confident expectancy.”
Chapter XXI.
The Coming Man Will Realize His Divinity
All the mysteries are cleared away and solved as we come into oneness with the Blessed One and begin to know—begin to be omniscient. Many omniscient men will soon walk the earth. Omniscience and freedom are the goal of all, and in this Great Age of Light many Egos are approaching the blessed omniscient state. He who sees God in All feels the ecstatic and blissful thrill of the Infinite Presence that cannot be described. How beautiful is the Universe to him who is at one with God and knows the Planner and the Plan.—The Blissful Prophet.
A HAPPY, contented, successful career must flow from a well-balanced, symmetrical mind, which has a sense of absolute security and unquestioned faith in the Great Creator, the providing and sustaining power.
A sense of uncertainty, of uneasiness, a lack of poise, of equilibrium in the life, is fatal to high success. We must think deeply enough into the nature of things to get rid of uncertainties. We must be rooted in the truth of being, and feel an unwavering faith that we are a part of the great Mind which creates and governs all things. There is a sense of certainty, of absolute security, when we know that nothing can wrench us out of our orbit, that no accident on land or sea, no disease or discord, can separate us from our union with that great power. Once having this security, fear departs, uncertainty and anxiety leave us, and all the faculties work in harmony. When we know that nothing can cheat us out of our birthright, that nothing can mar our real achievement, that every right step must lead to ultimate triumph, that every right act, that every germ of goodness, will ultimately struggle into flower and fruitage, we can serenely accomplish the highest that lies in our power.
There is something in our very consciousness which tells us that we are not mere products of chance. We feel that there is a certainty somewhere; that fear, anxiety, and uncertainty are not a necessary part of life. There is an instinct within us which tells us that we are inseparable from the one great Mind, that we are one with it, a reflection of it, that we were created in its image, and that our ultimate purpose cannot conflict with its ultimate purpose. We instinctively feel that there must be a unity in all things, could we but find it, and the best way to find it is to trust this great power. Implicit faith will do more for us than reasoning, and will bring us infinitely closer to this unity.
These verses by Ella Wheeler Wilcox urge such exercise of faith:
“Trust in thine own untried capacity
As thou wouldst trust in God himself. Thy soul
Is but an emanation from the whole.
“Thou dost not dream what forces lie in thee,
Vast and unfathomed as the grandest sea.
Thy silent mind o'er diamond caves may roll;
Go seek them, but let Pilot Will control
Those passions which thy favoring winds can be.
“No man shall place a limit to thy strength;
Such triumphs as no mortal ever gained
May yet be thine if thou wilt but believe
In thy Creator and in thyself. At length
Some feet will tread all heights now unattained—
Why not thine own? Press onI achieve! achieve!”
When we once touch power, when we once feel the thrill of the great central force which comes from the heart of truth, of being, we shall no longer doubt, no longer hesitate, no longer be satisfied with the superficial, the temporary, the material. When the soul once tastes its native food, once feels the thrill of the infinite pulse, it no longer is content to grovel.
When a man realizes that he is divine, when he sees that he is a part of the everlasting principle which is the very essence of reality, nothing can throw him off his physical or mental balance. He is centred in the everlasting truth, intrenched there in infinite power from the taint of fear, or anxiety, or worry, or accident, because he is conscious that he is principle himself, a part of the eternal verity. The feeling that he is in touch with the power which made and upholds the universe, that nothing can wrench him from this divine presence, gives a sense of security and peace. When he awakens in the morning, refreshed and rejuvenated, he feels that he has been in touch with the divinity that created him; that he has passed the borderland of sense and has come into the presence of an infinite power, an infinite life; that he has been created anew, and hence when he is tired and weary and sad, how he longs to get back to this divine presence, to be made over, to quench his thirst at the great fountain-head of life.
Man will never attain his highest power until he learns that his principle is as indestructible, as impossible of harm, as the laws of mathematics. Suppose all the mathematical books in the world were destroyed by fire, two and two would still make four. The principle itself would not be in the least affected. So when the real man arrives at his dominion, he will not in the least be disturbed by anything that may happen; he will maintain his equanimity, his mental poise, through all sorts of disaster without a tremor. The Creator has not made a mistake; his highest creation is not placed at the mercy of chance or accident.