and volition. All other mental faculties or powers were held to be but (a) phases or derivative forms of Imagination or Will; or (b) combinations and compositions of Imagination and Will, in which the elements of each are blended.
In that book of this series entitled “Personal Power,” we have shown you that the TwinGiants of Personal Power are IdeationVolition, or, in other words, IdeaWill. The more you ponder over this teaching, the stronger will grow your conviction of the underlying identity of Ideation and Volition; that Imagination and Will are TwinGiants, inseperable, always operating in conjunction with each other. This being so, you will begin to understand how and why a strong, vigorous Definite Ideal may become a Dynamic Creative Ideal by means of calling into operation and effect its twinaspect of Dynamic Will. For the purposes of easy thought on the subject and the manifestation of this principle, you may think of the Dynamic Creative Ideal as having the soul of Idea and the bodily strength of Will.
You may render your Ideals dynamic and creative by means of the employment of Desire, Faith, Imagination and Will. Applying the principle of the Master Formula, you (1) must know exactly what you want that Creative Ideal to be; (2) you must desire insistently that it be such; (3) you must confidently expect that it will be such; (4) you must persistently determine that it will be such and (5) you must pay the price of work, service, application, concentration, and of the relinquishment of opposing ideas and ideals, desires and feelings. By means of Insistent Desire, Confident Expectation, and Persistent Determination, the Creative Ideal may be raised to the rank and power of Dynamic Idealization.
Keep your Creative Ideals always before you; think of them, dream of them, make them a part of your very soul. Encourage them by visualizations of their realization in objective form; “brace them with affirmations”; give to them the force of habit by endeavoring to act upon their principles as often and so far as is possible. Think, feel, and act in their terms. Assimilate them to such an extent that your personal mental and physical instruments of expression may become their outward machinery. Let even your personal being become as the willing instrument of the manifestation into objective form of these Dynamic Creative Ideals. Live for the purpose of making your Ideals become Real.
What will be the result of the creation and maintenance of such Dynamic Creative Ideals? you may ask. Here is the answer of those wise and illumined members of the race who established the esoteric schools of ancient philosophy—and of the equally wise and illumined members of the race of today, who are striving to sow the seeds of the Inner Teachings in the minds of those who are prepared to receive them, nourish them, and allow them to develop, grow, and bear blossom and fruit. Here is the answer of such great souls:
“You are the creator of your own world of experience. Consciously or unconsciously, you are molding your world of experience, and determining your own destiny. In ignorance or in wisdom, for good or for evil, you are creating, building, constructing the scenery of that world in which you live, and move, and have your being. For weal or for woe, you are thus building. For better or for worse you are thus constructing. Your personal world of experience is largely what you, yourself, have made it. Your Ideals ever tend to become Real. You are always realizing your Ideals. What you have been doing unconsciously, you may now proceed to do consciously. By creating and controlling your Ideals, you create and control your world of experience. You may become an active master of Creation, instead of a passive slave.”
The strong, definite Dynamic Creative Ideal will call forth the full powers of your body, of your mind, and of your spirit. Reason, Imagination, Invention, will perform their best work under its influence; Desire will energize more intensely, and Will will determine more persistently, under its influence. The wonderful storehouse of the Subconscious will open wide its doors when the Creative Ideal gives “the right knock.” The still higher realm of the Superconscious will superimpose its wisdom and knowledge upon the conscious mind, when this be demanded by the Dynamic Ideal. All things will work together for good for him in whom the Dynamic Creative Ideal is manifesting its power. “I call them all forth; and forth come they in answer to my call,” says the Spirit of the Ideal in the old allegory of the Orient, “and chief of all, and the first to come forth, is my twinbrother WILL!” concludes that Ideal Spirit.
Definite Ideal and Concentrated Will—these are the TwinGiants of your Creative Power. Cultivate and develop both of them, and to an equal extent. Do not let your Definite Ideals suffer by reason of the lack of pulling and pushing power of your Concentrated Will. Neither let your Concentrated Will become static and inert, by reason of the lack of the directing and guiding power of your Definite Ideals. Grasp the hands of the TwinGiants, one on the right of you, one on your left; and then let the “I AM I” give the command, “Forward; March!” Naught can oppose the phalanx composed of your Definite Ideals, your Real Self, your Concentrated Will. Rightly may such a combination shout its battlecry: “I Can, I Will; I Dare, I Do!”
The “Will that Can” is the “Will that Knows.” The ancient Buddhists had an old aphorism which ran something like this: “To Know rightly, is to Think rightly; to Think rightly, is to Will rightly; to Will rightly, is to Act rightly; the root of Action is Knowledge; the fruit of Knowledge is Action.” The ancient Chaldeans had a similar proverb: “He who Knows, is able to Will effectively; he who Wills effectively, Creates his World!” All through the Secret Doctrines runs this song of “Ideal-Will”—of Knowing and Doing; and the most practical thinkers of our own times and lands echo the ancient reports.
Perhaps the highest phases of philosophical and metaphysical thought are those which hold that the only adequate explanation of the Universe is to be had in that hypothesis which postulates the existence of an Eternal, Infinite Spiritual Principle, the essence of which is Life, Will, and Ideative Consciousness—the essential Powers of which are Animation, Ideation, and Volition, respectively. In this view, Universal Creation (Creative Evolution) is accomplished by means of the Power of the Living Will, taking the forms and configurations patterned by the Living Idealizing Power.
Daring thinkers have likened the Universe to a Cosmic Dramatization of the Ideas and Ideals evolved by the Infinite Consciousness of SPIRIT, the machinery of Creation being operated by the Infinite Will of SPIRIT. Be this as it may, every careful and honest thinker has been compelled (at least at times) to admit that there is no escape from the conviction that the Universe shows the progressive workingout and manifestation of a Cosmic Purpose, Intention, End, Aim; in short, that the Universe is the Materialization of a preexisting Cosmic IDEA or IDEAL!
The processes of Cause and Effect show the presence and operation of something like Pure Deductive Logic in the activities of the Universe. Many poets, writers, and dramatists have pointed out that in the processes of the Universe there is manifested the presence and action of something that might he called “The Author”; a Something or Somewhat that develops a Cosmic Plot of Creation, and then logically, consistently, and artistically proceeds to perform the work of material Evolutionary Creation upon the lines of that ideal Plot. They point out that the characters, circumstances, actions and events of the Universe always “hang together”—always manifesting that Unity, Coherence and Balance which distinguish the literary compositions of the best writers.
This lofty conception may be but the fanciful expression of the perception by competent observers of that “something at work in the Universe” which bears a close resemblance to the “something at work” in their own minds; or, again, it may be the result of a deep intuition of Truth. Whatever it may be at the last, it certainly expresses a conviction that has come to many deep thinkers in all ages and all lands, many of whom had never heard the like expression of others of their kind.
Whatever may be the Ultimate Truth, it is certain that Man has at his disposal a mighty Creative Power, which in its more familiar phases is called “Constructive Imagination”; and which in its less familiar, esoteric, transcendental phase is called—What? Man, in his own realm is a Creator—and the limits of his realm are determined by himself, by his Imagination, by his Will!
FINIS
