|
It is evident that the great, happy and successful people of the world have access to some power
that obscure, unhappy failures know little or nothing about. Perhaps you think that it is just good
luck that brings success, and let it go at that. But you miss something very important if you think
like that. There is something other than luck or heredity that bestows happiness on one and failure
on another, There is a method of employing the method, that has been employed by thousands of
others to attain success and happiness for yourself. If you seek help and are not
afflicted with a closed mind, you can use the same power that has
served these people, Let us begin with considering the reason for the case, for all Law is reason.
As we look about us in the world, our senses inform us that it is full of objects of all sorts: houses,
trees, people. We give the general name of 'things' or 'forms' to these objects. Closer observation
informs us that each object has individual characteristics, such as odor, density,
firmness, weight,
color and we find that these objects are made of the same substances in varying physical or
chemical combinations. So we say that the objects composing our environment are made of matter,
and the state in which matter appears is visible.
Now, if we look more intently, we will see that there are other conditions in our world that are
invisible. We see the fall of an apple; the cause of the fall remains invisible. We do not see the forces
or energies themselves, but they are the causes of all that we see. What we see are the results -
- called phenomena, or actions and states of being.
Plants, animals and human bodies change in size, but we do not see that makes them increase. We
observe people moving about, but we do not see what makes them move, We think, but we do not
see our thoughts. We listen to the radio, send telegrams, speak over telephones, or push a button
for lights in our rooms but we do not see the energy on the way. We see a chicken pecking about
the poultry yard; in a short time she lays an egg, which in due time becomes a chicken and later
that chicken becomes a full grown bird, reproducing the process of life. A great
drama of forces
constantly unfolds for us.
So observation teaches us that we live not only in a visible world of matter but also in an invisible
world of forces and energies that produce the visible things in our environment. We recognize these
visible forms and we sense the invisible forces behind them through a power we call mind. No
human being has ever seen mind, yet the existence of such a power is the most obvious thing in
all our understanding, Everything in this world about us that man has produced, began as a thought
in the mind of some man. Your home began as a thought that existed in the builder's mind before
it took form. Your car took form first in the maker's mind. Everything that we do, individually or
collectively, begins first in the thought of the thing. No matter how suddenly we do a thing at times,
we think of it first. Sometimes we act quickly on the thought; sometimes we have to wait until we
can develop conditions favorable to its accomplishment.
Also as we look about us, we, observe many forms of matter that were not
produced by the hand of man, for they express characteristics that no human
being has ever produced. Man cannot create a tree, for instance, or an ocean or
a robin, yet they too must have begun in a mind. In what mind and what thought
did they begin ? |
