THE POWER OF MIND. William Walker Atkinson

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СКАЧАТЬ present thoughts and actions—our characters, in fact, are largely the result of our past thoughts and mental attitude. And the thoughts, actions and character of each of you, in the future, will be largely the result of the mental material which you are now placing in these storage rooms of your mind. This is not “preaching” or “moralizing,” but is merely the calling of your attention to facts and truths known to, and admitted by, all students of psychology.

      We are today largely the result of what we have thought, or what we have allowed to impress us in the past. Our Mental Attitude, together with the kind of suggestions that we have allowed to impress us in the past, determines to a great extent our “character” and “self” of today. When we think, we do not manufacture the thought­fabric out of the thin air, or sunlight, or out of “nothing” as many seem to suppose. Each bit of wonderful fabric of thought and action is the result of the weaving of the mental material that we have accumulated in the past and stored away in some of the storage rooms of the Inner Consciousness. This surely is plain enough to everyone who will give the matter a moment’s thought, and yet how few really have realized the truth and still fewer are those who have learned to act upon this principle. If we were building a house, store or any other building, how careful we would be to see that none but the best materials were delivered to the builders in whose hands the erection of the property was placed. How carefully each item of material would be inspected. If we were in the manufacturing business, and wished to turn out goods of fine quality, how careful we would be regarding the grade of the material to be used. Our buyer would exercise his skill, and the inspector would look over each consignment as it arrived, rejecting all imperfect and unsatisfactory material. And yet, how careless we are regarding our thoughts, moods, mental attitudes, and auto­suggestions that we place among the material to be used in our mental building and manufacturing in the days to come. Is it not time to call a halt on these careless and almost criminal methods, and adopt a sane, scientific plane of thought-life?

      The Mental Attitude of a man is represented by the character of thoughts which he allows to “take a hold on him.” If he allows every despondent, negative, hurtful thought to obtain lodgment in his mind, his mental attitude will gradually become in harmony with such thoughts, and he will be laying away a fresh stock of negative thoughts each day, which will surely be woven into the mental-fabric he turns out on some future day. Can you doubt this, when you know of the effects of certain mental “habits” of manifestation? And what are these habits, but the using of the thought-material of the past? How much harder is it for a man whose mind is full of these negative thought-materials to present a bold, confident, courageous front in the battles of life? His every instinct and habit of thought is against it. It is so much easier to droop the shoulders, and fold the hands, and say “what’s the use?” in such a case— because all the mental material is of that dark grey, negative hue—all the material is of that rotten, worthless quality. But if, in the past you have cultivated the habit of refusing to admit the negative thoughts and suggestions—have thrown them out on the scrap-pile, and have stored away nothing but the bright, cheerful, courageous and positive thoughts and suggestions— then when you begin to build or weave you will surely produce the best kind of thought and action. You cannot help it, for you are working with the best materials, and with your mental machine adjusted to the proper gauge.

      All this is far more than “jollying” or “cheering-up talk”—it is a statement of psychological fact which if once thoroughly understood by the masses of people, would make this old world of ours over into a much brighter and cheerful place. An understanding of these principles will make you over mentally, if you will but act upon your new knowledge. There is no “secret process” connected with this work—all that is necessary for you to do, is to Will that henceforth you will allow no negative, depressing or undesirable thought take lodgment in your mind, but will on the contrary keep steadily at work replacing the undesirable things in your mind with desirable material. When a negative thought comes into your field of consciousness, dismiss it with the thought “there is another bit of that mental truck that I stored away—away with it to the scrap-pile.” And lose no opportunity of thinking the bright, optimistic, positive, desirable thoughts, and storing them away. And when you can put one of these thoughts into action, by all means do so, for by so doing you have added a large share to the right kind of material in your mental storehouse.

      Do not let the thought of the past thought-foolishness worry you or discourage you. Think of the comparison, made by a well-known writer who compared the mind to a bowl of muddy water, into which a clear stream of fresh water was pouring. Anyone will see that the fresh water will gradually clear the entire body of water, until the muddy substances are not discernible. So pour in the kind of thoughts you desire, and thus render clear the muddiness that has been your bane for so long. Another writer has compared the matter to a dark room— if you wish to drive away the darkness, just open the shutters and admit the light, and lo! the darkness has disappeared. And this last illustration is true according to the old occult teachings which held that a “positive” thought always tended to neutralize and transmute a “negative” one—in fact that a positive thought had sufficient potency and force to neutralize many negative thoughts. This being the case, by will-power, and perseverance, you may change the nature of your mental-materials stored away in the storerooms of the Inner Consciousness, including the inherited ones, and thus render yourself practically a new person in character and nature, within a reasonable time.

      The Ego is the real master, and not the slave of environment that so many seem to think it is. It is true that when the Ego lies dormant and passive, the personality is indeed made up of the inherited ideas and feelings; the suggested thoughts and ideas; and the acquired ideas and tendencies picked up during our life. But let the Ego once rouse itself and put into operation its own weapon—the Will—then it is enabled to master environment, and to cast out the rubbish stored away from the past, replacing it with bright, fresh, good strong mental material from which the thoughts and actions of the future will be manufactured. The Ego can remake one’s “character,” for it is the Master of the Mental Warehouse. Dismiss your careless and incompetent mental assistants, which have allowed this accumulation of mental rubbish. Take charge yourself—You, the Ego—and assert your Mastery. Inspect and pick out your own mental material, that nothing but the best quality of thought and action may be produced!

      Lesson V.

       “Making-Over” Oneself.

       Table of Content

      ONE OF the most interesting phases of the science of using the Inner Consciousness, is that which may be called “making-over” oneself. That is, the application of psychological laws in the direction of rebuilding certain of the Inner Conscious planes, or rather in replacing the mental material stored there by the more desirable material. This process has been aptly called “Character Building,” which indeed it is, for the character is largely dependent upon what is contained in the Inner Consciousness, and whatever affects the latter affects the Character. The word “Character” itself, is derived from a Greek word meaning “to engrave;” to “cut in”; and some of the authorities state that the Greek word was derived from some older language and was first used by the ancient makers of bricks to indicate the personal trade mark marked by each upon the bricks manufactured by himself, each maker having his own trade mark. And the word has gradually grown in meaning until today we use it in the sense of “the peculiar quality, or sum of qualities, by which a person or thing is distinguished from others.” (Webster.) This latter-day use of the term is interesting when one is able to trace it from its original usage, showing the idea that was in the minds of those who have gone before us, i. e., that this thing that we call “character” was something impressed or engraved upon a man’s mental substance. To the majority of persons character is something that belongs to a person, by some unchangeable natural law, and which cannot be altered or improved. To the experienced psychologist, however, character is a plastic thing, which is modified by the character of one’s thoughts and mental attitude, and which may therefore be improved, СКАЧАТЬ