Thinking in The Certain Way

Turn back to Chap­ter 6 and read again the story of the man who formed a men­tal image of his house and you will get a fair idea of the ini­tial step toward get­ting rich. You must form a clear and def­i­nite men­tal pic­ture of what you want. You can­not trans­mit an idea unless you have it yourself.

You must have it before you can give it, and many peo­ple fail to impress think­ing sub­stance because they have them­selves only a vague and misty con­cept of the things they want to do, to have, or to become.

It is not enough that you should have a gen­eral desire for wealth “to do good with.” Every­body has that desire.

It is not enough that you should have a wish to travel, see things, live more, etc. Every­body has those desires also. If you were going to send a wire­less mes­sage to a friend, you would not send the let­ters of the alpha­bet in their order and let him con­struct the mes­sage for him­self, nor would you take words at ran­dom from the dic­tio­nary. You would send a coher­ent sen­tence, one which meant something.

When you try to impress your wants upon the think­ing sub­stance, remem­ber that it must be done by a coher­ent state­ment. You must know what you want and be spe­cific and def­i­nite. You can never get rich or start the cre­ative power into action by send­ing out unformed long­ings and vague desires.

Go over your desires just as the man I have described went over his house. See just what you want and get a clear men­tal pic­ture of it as you wish it to look when you get it.

That clear men­tal pic­ture you must have con­tin­u­ally in mind. As the sailor has in mind the port toward which he is sail­ing the ship, you must keep your face toward it all the time. You must no more lose sight of it than the helms­man loses sight of the compass.

It is not nec­es­sary to take exer­cises in con­cen­tra­tion, nor to set apart spe­cial times for prayer and affir­ma­tion, nor to “go into the silence,” nor to do occult stunts of any kind. Some of these things are well enough, but all you need is to know what you want and to want it badly enough so that it will stay in your thoughts.

Spend as much of your leisure time as you can in con­tem­plat­ing your pic­ture. But no one needs to take exer­cises to con­cen­trate his mind on a thing which he really wants. It is the things you do not really care about which require effort to fix your atten­tion upon them.

And unless you really want to get rich, so that the desire is strong enough to hold your thoughts directed to the pur­pose as the mag­netic pole holds the nee­dle of the com­pass, it will hardly be worth-​​while for you to try to carry out the instruc­tions given in this book.

The meth­ods set forth here are for peo­ple whose desire for riches is strong enough to over­come men­tal lazi­ness and the love of ease, and to make them work.

The more clear and def­i­nite you make your pic­ture then, and the more you dwell upon it, bring­ing out all its delight­ful details, the stronger your desire will be. And the stronger your desire, the eas­ier it will be to hold your mind fixed upon the pic­ture of what you want.

Some­thing more is nec­es­sary, how­ever, than merely to see the pic­ture clearly. If that is all you do, you are only a dreamer, and will have lit­tle or no power for accomplishment.

Behind your clear vision must be the pur­pose to real­ize it, to bring it out in tan­gi­ble expression.

And behind this pur­pose must be an invin­ci­ble and unwa­ver­ing FAITH that the thing is already yours, that it is “at hand” and you have only to take pos­ses­sion of it.

Live in the new house, men­tally, until it takes form around you phys­i­cally. In the men­tal realm, enter at once into full enjoy­ment of the things you want.

“What­so­ever things ye ask for when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them,” said Jesus.

See the things you want as if they were actu­ally around you all the time. See your­self as own­ing and using them. Make use of them in imag­i­na­tion just as you will use them when they are your tan­gi­ble pos­ses­sions. Dwell upon your men­tal pic­ture until it is clear and dis­tinct, and then take the men­tal atti­tude of own­er­ship toward every­thing in that pic­ture. Take pos­ses­sion of it, in mind, in the full faith that it is actu­ally yours. Hold to this men­tal own­er­ship. Do not waiver for an instant in the faith that it is real.

And remem­ber what was said in a pro­ceed­ing chap­ter about grat­i­tude: Be as thank­ful for it all the time as you expect to be when it has taken form. The per­son who can sin­cerely thank God for the things which as yet he owns only in imag­i­na­tion has real faith. He will get rich. He will cause the cre­ation of what­ever he wants.

You do not need to pray repeat­edly for things you want. It is not nec­es­sary to tell God about it every day.

Your part is to intel­li­gently for­mu­late your desire for the things which make for a larger life and to get these desire arranged into a coher­ent whole, and then to impress this whole desire upon the form­less sub­stance, which has the power and the will to bring you what you want.

You do not make this impres­sion by repeat­ing strings of words; you make it by hold­ing the vision with unshak­able PURPOSE to attain it and with stead­fast FAITH that you do attain it.

The answer to prayer is not accord­ing to your faith while you are talk­ing, but accord­ing to your faith while you are working.

You can­not impress the mind of God by hav­ing a spe­cial Sab­bath day set apart to tell him what you want, and then for­get­ting him dur­ing the rest of the week. You can­not impress him by hav­ing spe­cial hours to go into your closet and pray, if you then dis­miss the mat­ter from your mind until the hour of prayer comes again.

Oral prayer is well enough, and has its effect, espe­cially upon your­self, in clar­i­fy­ing your vision and strength­en­ing your faith, but it is not your oral peti­tions which get you what you want. In order to get rich you do not need a “sweet hour of prayer;” you need to “pray with­out ceas­ing.” And by prayer I mean hold­ing steadily to your vision, with the pur­pose to cause its cre­ation into solid form, and the faith that you are doing so.

“Believe that ye receive them.”

Once you have clearly formed your vision, the whole mat­ter turns on receiv­ing. When you have formed it, it is well to make an oral state­ment, address­ing the supreme in grat­i­tude. Then, from that moment on you must, in mind, receive what you ask for.

Live in the new house, wear the fine clothes, ride in the auto­mo­bile, go on the jour­ney, and con­fi­dently plan for greater jour­neys. Think and speak of all the things you have asked for in terms of actual present own­er­ship. Imag­ine an envi­ron­ment and a finan­cial con­di­tion exactly as you want them, and live all the time in that men­tal envi­ron­ment and finan­cial con­di­tion until they take phys­i­cal shape.

Mind, how­ever, that you do not do this as a mere dreamer and cas­tle builder. Hold to the FAITH that the imag­i­nary is being real­ized and to your PURPOSE to real­ize it. Remem­ber that it is faith and pur­pose in the use of the imag­i­na­tion which make the dif­fer­ence between the sci­en­tist and the dreamer.

And hav­ing learned this fact, it is here that you must learn the proper use of the will.

About the Author

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