Dynamic Thought
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WHILE the existence of the subliminal mind is a modern discovery to Western minds, it is ancient knowledge in the East. For centuries this knowledge has been treasured by certain orders of mystics. Dating right back to the earliest times we find evidence of signs and wonders being worked through the power of the subliminal mind.

In the West, however, there has always been a tendency toward materialism. A materialist believes in matter. He wants to see, touch and handle before he will believe.

Literally he will only believe what he sees through the senses.

Modern science has, however, knocked the ground from under the materialist's feet, because it is constantly proving that there is far more in the unseen than there is in the seen. Science, in spite of all its achievements, realizes that, up to the present, it has only been paddling on the edge of a mighty ocean of mystery.

Science has, slowly and with huge and clumsy effort, now proved the existence of many things which scientists would not believe before, but which were known to the ancients, and have been known in the East for centuries. One of these is the existence of the subliminal mind. Mesmerism and Hypnotism have proved that man is composed of more than one MIND. There is the surface or outside mind of the senses.

This mind reasons, learns from books and other outside sources, and functions generally, on the physical plane. It is only a minute fraction of the total mind of man. Like the iceberg which only shows one-twelfth of itself above the surface of the sea, the other eleven-twelfths being submerged, the objective mind of man is only an infinitesimal portion of the whole.

The surface or objective mind is the finite mind, the Subliminal is joined up with the Universal Mind of the Universe, therefore it can never be measured, it is beyond comprehension. Sufficient for us to know that its power is limitless, and that we can use this power in creating our lives anew, and for the realization of all our desires.

The Subliminal Mind is

(1) inspiratory,

(2) intuitive, and

(3) creative.

It is a storehouse of knowledge and the power-house of energy. It is much more than all this, how much no one knows. In this lesson we will consider the first three descriptions in the order named.

(1) Inspiration. It is through the subliminal mind that all inspiration has come to men.

It was through this channel that Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Milton, Emerson and all great teachers, preachers and leaders have drawn their inspiration. All the good that has ever come into this world has been through inspiration; and all inspiration comes through the subliminal mind.

All who have ever accomplished anything worth accomplishing have done so through the inspiration of their subliminal mind. That some are giants in their accomplishments and others pigmies is simply due to differing degrees of expression. Some express more of the Power within them, some express less. The Power is there, it is for us to express it. We cannot all be Shakespeares and Miltons, neither is it possible for all men to be Gladstones or Lincolns, but there is a niche somewhere in the world where we can each find a useful field of congenial work. We can, if we will, be guided by inspiration, find somewhere a field of labor where we can pour out our pent up passion for achievement, where we can command success beyond our wildest dreams.

You, dear reader, have not been sent into this world for a joke, you have been sent to achieve a certain purpose, to accomplish something which no one can do but you. There is no one in all the world just like you, and all that you do is colored by your individuality. No one in all the world could do your work just as you do it; there are fields of conquest in front of you which no one but you can conquer. Therefore listen to the voice of inspiration.

(2) Intuitive. Those who learn to recognize the voice of intuition are brought into touch with infinite wisdom. They do by intuition that which other people can only do by cumbersome effort, if indeed they can do it at all. One who has developed this power has no perplexities, because all his problems are solved for him by his subliminal mind. He listens to the inner voice of wisdom, acts accordingly, and the result always justifies his faith in this inward power.

President Lincoln, when confronted by a perplexing problem. used to make a habit of dismissing it to his inner mind; and then going for a short walk. During his walk he would interest himself in the birds and trees and other things around him and then give no thought to the perplexity which was demanding an answer.

When he got back from his walk the answer would be ready—his subliminal mind had solved the problem. Others, puzzled by an intricate matter, may go to bed with the problem still unsolved, and awake in the morning with the solution of their difficulty already formed in their conscious mind; or it may come to them, like a flash, while they are dressing; the subliminal mind has solved their problem.

In the subliminal mind is all wisdom and understanding. You, too, can use this wisdom and understanding if you develop the faculty of inward hearing.

(3) Creative. The subliminal mind is creative. Being one with the Universal Mind, which is the Creative Power of the Universe, it partakes of the same nature. The difference is not one of kind but of degree.

As in the macrocosm, so in the microcosm. Just as Infinite Mind is absolute through the whole Universe, so is man king of his life, master of his fate, captain of his soul, creator of his life and circumstances.

Man cannot create a planet, but he can consciously form an image or picture in his creative mind, a picture of better circumstance, different environment or definite achievement, and holding that image persistently compel it to materialize in his life and circumstances. This is not a fairy tale—it is a hard, common sense fact. There is nothing that has ever been accomplished by man that has not first been created and imaged in his mind. It is always the vision first, and afterwards the accomplishment.

The difference between men is a difference of vision. The difference between their vision is the difference between their accomplishment. Some men create more than others—it is because theirs is a greater vision. All the great ones of the earth, leaders of men and nations, artists, poets, inventors, financiers, have been what they were because of their "vision," because they were men of "imagination."

People who pride themselves on being "practical" look askance at imagination, thinking it to be something impractical and shadowy; something belonging to the realm of dreams. They confuse constructive imagery with day dreaming. Now, the imagination of which I am speaking is the very antithesis of day dreaming.

Day dreaming is the aimless frittering away of the mental powers; creative imagination, on the other hand, gathers together the mental forces, and by focusing the powers of the hidden mind bring into being a definite image. This definite image is the vision which all men of accomplishment possess.

This vision is the basis of all achievement. It is impossible to name a single great man or woman who has not been inspired and guided by it. The reason that here and there in the world's history there have been great characters who have achieved the noblest ends is because theirs have been the noblest visions. It is impossible to create a poor, puny, low kind of image in the mind, and then to win great success in life.

As the image is, so your life will be. Therefore if you hold in your mind the vision, or mental picture, of great success or noble endeavor, then in your life these things will become manifested. It cannot be otherwise—because what is held in the mind is later manifested in the life.

Thus it is that a person of poor powers of concentration cannot hold a definite image in his mind, but must be always changing and modifying it, with the result that he gets nothing but confusion and lack of achievement manifested in his life.

What you are inwardly, what you think inwardly, what you visualize inwardly, is what your future life will be. Your outward life is modeled on your inward life—it is an exact replica of the life within.

Therefore your subliminal mind is not only the source of inspiration and intuition, it is creative also. Your life is in your own hands, you can make it what you will. Your future is yours entirely, you can build it up with mathematical precision into any form you please. You are free to make or to mar, to build up or destroy.

You can climb to the highest heights or descend to the lowest depths. You can be weak or strong, filthy or pure, miserable or happy, unsuccessful or successful, poverty stricken or prosperous, ill or healthy, hated or loved: It is all a matter of Thought-control and Scientific Thinking.

It is now time that you begin to apply some of the things you have learned. Therefore add to your affirmation at night the following:

MINE IS A LIFE OF OVERCOMING AND POWER. Henceforward I will cease doing ______ and will instead do ______ . I do this by the Infinite Power within me which can never fail.

Where I have left blanks I want you to fill in with

(1) whatever bad habit you most wish to eradicate, and

(2) to insert the virtue which you wish to put in its place.

For instance suppose you have been in the habit of getting up late, swallowing your breakfast hurriedly and rushing to business, getting all behind with appointments and correspondence, developing indigestion, headache and peevishness in consequence. Supposing this is the case (of course I only use this as an illustration), you will fill in the words to suit, so that the sentence will read something like this, supposing your proper time for rising to be 7am:

"Henceforward I will cease getting up late and will instead get up punctually at 7am"

Or better still, you can command yourself to wake at 6:30am and spend half an hour in meditations and the saying of affirmations. You will then be quite ready to rise at 7 o'clock.

Immediately following the affirmation, visualize a picture of yourself waking in the morning. "See" yourself open your eyes and look at the clock. "See" that the time is 6:30am. "See" yourself engaged in concentration, meditation and making of affirmations. "See" yourself look at the clock again, and at 7 o'clock "see" yourself get up and go to the bath room. The more clearly you can picture this scene the easier will you find the task of getting up to be.

You may not be successful the first morning or two, but if you persevere you will find that you have by the use of affirmations complete control over yourself. The more successful you become the stronger does your Will-power grow.

If you are in the habit of going to bed too late you can add to your morning affirmation the following:

"Henceforward I will cease going to bed late. I will instead go to bed at 10. At 10 o'clock tonight I shall feel sleepy and tired. I will then go to bed."

After making this affirmation, visualize yourself as you will appear at 10pm. You are, we will say, sitting reading or working. You "see" yourself look at the clock. You "see" yourself put your book or work away and go to bed. Persevere with the visualizing until you can see every detail with great vividness and distinctness.

Make this affirmation and create this mental picture and you will find that what you have affirmed and visualized will come to pass exactly as desired. Before you is unfolding a life of perfect self-control and overcoming. When you have become master of yourself, first in small things and then in the greater, you will have become master over your life, your circumstances and your destiny.

Not only is it necessary that you should overcome habits in this way by reversing them, but it is also necessary that you should reverse all your wrong ideas of life and the Universe, replacing wrong and harmful ideas by Truth. One of the objects of this Course is to dispel old erroneous beliefs, and thus to change your mental outlook.

In addition it is necessary that you should reverse every thought and suggestion of a harmful character directly it comes to you. A thought may come to you such as: "You will fail, you can never succeed." Now if you allow that thought to enter your mind it will weaken you, paralyze your efforts and bring failure into your life, just as surely as day follows night. Therefore as soon as it comes to you you must kill it by denial. In this case you would raise yourself in thought to your perfect mental world and say, "There is no failure. I am a perfect Mental creature living in a perfect Mental World, all the potentialities of the Infinite Mind are mine. I cannot fail." Say this over several times and then affirm: "I am Success, within me are Infinite Powers; I am success in all that I undertake."

Every time that you do this you drive failure further and further away and establish success more firmly in your life. The oftener you do this, provided that you get a clear concept of your perfect Mental World, and, as it were, breathe its atmosphere. the more rapidly you will progress. Do not, however, strain and worry after results, instead seek to adopt and maintain a calm, serene, confident attitude, above the worries and cares of life.

Again, the thought may come to you, "there is that pain again, I am going to have one of my bad attacks." If you allow this thought to enter your mind you will have that bad "attack"; it will surely come and nothing will be able to keep it away. The "attack" is only effect, the cause is the thought within your mind, and no amount of medicine will be able to help you because it cannot touch the "cause," and can only tinker about with the "effect." Such efforts are on a par with trying to keep the ocean back with a broom.

Therefore when the pain and thought come and seek admittance at the door of your mind, immediately deny their existence, They have no real existence. You, the real YOU, are a perfect mental creature in a perfect mental world, where there is no such thing as pain or "attacks," and if you realize this you can never be ill. It is only when you let thoughts and suggestions of pain and illness come into the mind that pain and illness become possible in your body, because what happens in your body and life is an exact reflex of what you hold in your mind.

Therefore if you deny pain and sickness in your perfect Mental World, then at once the pain will cease. In lesson 2 I told you that by denying evil you not only killed the thought of evil, but that you also destroyed the evil itself, and that later you could prove the truth of this. This you can do with pain. If, when in pain, you will rise into your perfect Mental World and deny pain, then the pain will go away almost immediately.

After denying pain and sickness, affirm perfect health. The denial will kill the harmful thought and cleanse the mind, and the affirmation will heal and build up and make all future attacks weaker. By this method you can "reverse" every harmful thought, belief and emotion.

It is necessary when you deny any evil, no matter what it may be, that you clearly realize that you are denying apparent evil to exist in the material world. For instance, if you have a carbuncle as big as your fist at the back of your neck it is foolish to deny that it exists, because it does exist as much as anything can he said to exist in this transient world.

There are, however, two YOUS. There is the material YOU, and there is the sublime mental and spiritual YOU. The material YOU is a transient fleeting material person, the real YOU is a glorious mental and spiritual creature, imperishable and eternal. When you (the real YOU) raise yourself into your Perfect World of Mind, you leave the imperfect and coarse material body behind, and it is the sublime YOU, the perfect Mental and Spiritual YOU who, in a perfect World of Infinite Good, Purity and Perfection, deny that there is a carbuncle.

You, the sublime YOU, have no carbuncle, it is only the material YOU which you have left behind which has a carbuncle. By raising yourself into your Perfect World of Mind you transfer your consciousness from the material world to that Transcendental World of Infinite Perfection which our greatest philosophers and thinkers have always realized to exist around us and above us. This is why, as you raise yourself into your Perfect World of Mind, your pain disappears like the sound of a band dying away in the distance; it is because you have transferred your consciousness from a material world to a mental or spiritual one.

If, when you have entered this Perfect World of Mind you deny the evil that is troubling you (by this you do not deny that it exists in your material body but only in your radiant mental body) and if you then meditate upon the Infinite Perfection Boundless Life, Perfect Good, Unsullied Purity and Immeasurable Power of the Infinite Mind which rules this Perfect Mental World; if you will bask, as it were, in the sunshine and happiness of Infinite Perfection and Love of this Transcendental World, then you open your life and your physical body to the action of the Universal Mind, and your material life, circumstances and body become more like the life of the Perfect World of Mind, and your body more like your sublime mental body.

Thus if it is a carbuncle that is troubling you, then it will disperse and your body become quite healthy. The clearer your concept of the Perfect World is the more rapid and certain are the results in your life, body and circumstances.

Every time you rise to your Perfect Mental World and deny evil, every time you realize and bask in the infinite Perfections of the ideal world, each time that you do this, evil is destroyed in your life and body, and good is installed in its place. Therefore, the more you live in your Perfect World the more perfect will your life and circumstances become.

Remember, therefore, to always retire into yourself and to rise into your Perfect World of Mind before making a denial and an affirmation.

To be pondered over between the hours of 6am and 9am and 9pm and 11pm. Especially just before retiring is recommended.

In the past I have listened to the distracting voices of this imperfect unsatisfying Life of the senses. I have been pulled this way and that, by desire, by impulse, by uncontrolled emotions, and have been influenced by the advice of those who have had no inward knowledge. Henceforth I turn a deaf ear to all these voices and listen only to the inward voice which always speaks with perfect wisdom.

No more shall I be perplexed and worried not knowing which way to turn or what to do, instead I shall be guided perfectly by the inward voice of inspiration. I raise my mind above this life of the senses and dwell in the perfect World of Mind. All thoughts and suggestions and states that are not in harmony with the highest good, I reverse into their opposites. Thus do I cleanse my mind, my thought, my life, my circumstances, my world, and build up my life anew.

When perplexed or faced with difficult problems, I retire into my inner self, and, by thought control, I keep out, or "reverse," the unwanted thought, until my inner mind is stilled and calmed, and I can hear the inner voice of wisdom. This voice of wisdom never errs, never leads astray, but always guides me toward the highest good. Therefore I have no worry or care or perplexity, because I always know how to act even in the most perplexing circumstances, being guided perfectly by the inner voice of wisdom.

Henceforth there is for me no care, anxiety or worry, because I am guided into all good. Every good and perfect thing is mine NOW. Health, prosperity, happiness, peace of mind, all are mine here and now.

Having for this week past impressed on your Subliminal Mind that it CAN think constructively and drawing upon the All-Knowledge, solve your every problem, it is now necessary for you to tell your Subliminal Mind that it DOES solve all your problems. This week's meditation indicates the way—to retire into yourself—this is the secret. To most students it is a difficult task to still the senses and inhibit unwanted thought, but it is comparatively easy, if, instead of trying to inhibit all thought and keep on concentrating upon it and dismissing every thought of care, worry, business, or anything to do with the senses which comes to you. It must be a thought which will draw you away from the life of the senses to the greater life of the mind and spirit.

For instance, the Bible student might with advantage concentrate upon some such words as these: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee." Another might say with Emerson: "I am the owner of the Sphere, of the seven stars and the Solar Year," and so on according to what your religion or philosophical views may happen to be. Or you can concentrate upon a mental image of infinite beauty and perfection, the future Golden Age, Paradise, Heaven or whatever is to you the highest, MOST PLEASING and most inspiring. Continue to dismiss all other thought until all worry is killed and the mind and Spirit are at rest. Then say in your own words, something like this: My Subliminal Mind draws upon the All-Wisdom and solves my every problem and difficulty.

The life that lies before the student of Truth is one of great glory—of infinite expansion and unfoldment. It does not, however, always appear thus to him. In order to test his mettle, it often appears drab and hopeless. Everything seems to go wrong, and voices whisper "Go back, why trouble any longer, the pursuit is hopeless." If the student does go back he proves that he is not worthy, and for him there can never be the steep ascent to God. But the one who will keep on in spite of all discouragements and opposition, and who proves his worth, passes on to a life of indescribable joy, of victory and achievement, of abundant health and peace of mind.

I affirm for you the life of true freedom. "Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free."