 And the first step in this direction follows: We will suppose that there is an urgent need for you to reach a certain town as quickly as possible. When you step into your automobile, you naturally picture in mind a given point of destination and turn your face in that direction. If that point be distant, you may become diverted onto wrong roads many times, but upon noting this, you return and again take the proper course, guided by what? – by the picture in mind of the place you are headed for, and you get there. You held to a set definite objective until you reached it. You held your objective or destination in mind without any particular effort or strain and merely returned the car to the proper road when you found that it had strayed, and you got there. Thus it is with us. A set definite objective must be established if we are to accomplish anything in a big way. What do I mean by establishing a set definite objective? Is it as simple as it sounds? No, not at the start. Would you set your objective at a million immediately and start out thoughtlessly to make it overnight? Yes, you might, if you have the capacity to see a million as an immediate possibility. But this is quite rare. The wise thing to do is to grow to it as the marathon runner begins by first running a mile. Then he goes two miles, then three. Thus he expands his capacity to eventually cover the full distance. Why is a set definite objective necessary? There are three reasons. First – The Inner mind is the positive pole of your being, while the Outer is the negative pole, as in geology the North Pole is the positive and the South Pole the negative. There must be a positive and negative in everything in the universe in order to complete a circuit or circle, without which there would be no activity, no motion. To illustrate this, there would be no forward if we had no backward. There could be no up if there were no down. There never could have been such a quality as good if there were no evil, so called. How could there have been light without darkness? For us to be conscious of one thing, there must be another opposite by which to compare it or it remains nonexistent to us. Now, in everything that is obedient to Law, the positive dominates and governs and the negative serves. But mankind reverses this. The Outer mind looks out upon the world and reports strife, competition, obstacles, impossibilities and similar conditions. Why? Because of the absence of direction, it is left to wander without a purpose and thus, aimlessly wandering, it accepts everything. The set definite objective, firmly imaged or pictured in mind, immediately whips the Outer into line by giving it a fixed duty to perform. This, automatically, without any effort on your part, infuses into it the positive quality of the Inner mind, and since the law of the universe and, therefore, also of your being, cannot change; negative conditions, including individuals, serve it and therefore you. And again, automatically, positive conditions and individuals are attracted to you as surely as the steel particles are attracted to the magnet. That is the first reason. Second – The atmosphere, or ether, as we prefer to name it, is filled with millions upon millions of thoughts which are forever in motion. The hundreds of stations in your country, all broadcasting simultaneously, give you a slight idea of the thoughts in the air. Every human being is a broadcasting station and everybody is a receiving set. This explains why I am able to answer your questions instantly, before you have had to form them into words. The fact that I have been getting your thoughts before you have expressed them and which have been puzzling you, is now made clear. This is a faculty developed after years of training. This faculty was always in me and is within you. I have brought out and made use of mine, while yours lies dormant almost entirely. To get back to our subject. The man who has no set definite objective is tuning in to everything and getting nothing. He is unfortunate indeed, for he is at the mercy of millions of conflicting thoughts and his is a life of confusion and distress. Some of those in my work have so perfected themselves that they are able to see these thoughts by virtue of the same law developed in themselves, by which you will soon be enjoying motion pictures transmitted to you over the radio. Therefore, we know what we are talking about when we speak of the chaos of thoughts in the air. On the other hand, the man who has a set definite objective deliberately tunes in to one thing, which action automatically makes him positive and consequently wipes out the others. If it is money he wants, he gets it. If it is position he wants, he gets it. Nothing that such a man tunes in to can be withheld from him. Third – When you set your mind upon anything, whether it be small or large, a pencil, a hat, automobile, a home or great riches; whether it be tangible like these or intangible, such as an education, a profession or travel, you transfer a portion of your life force to that thing, or how could it be otherwise drawn to you? And you continue to nourish it as long as it is held in mind, and the intensity of your desire governs the power with which the force is directed. So you can see that were even a positive man to direct his force at several objectives, that force becomes divided and each objective receives but a feeble stimulus, resulting in slow reaction or none at all. Have you a great ultimate goal to reach requiring the attainment of lesser objectives on the way? Well, then, let the many lie inactive and direct your force at the nearest or first, and that being accomplished, take up the next and thus follow on as they occur in sequential order. Have I now given you the Law in its entirety? Well, in a sense, I have. Then again, I have not. To instruct one as to what to do is good, but to show one how to do it is better. It is not only necessary that we learn how to attain, but we must also learn how to maintain. I will, therefore, go further and give you an important requirement in successful achievement and that is secretiveness. |
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