the past, all the great inventors, all the great artists, statesmen, leaders, business men. What they have done is but a tithe of what still remains to do — of what men in your day and your children’s day will do. You can have a part in it. Stored away within you is every power that any man or woman ever possessed. It awaits only your call.
In “Thoughts on Business,” we read: “It is a great day in a man’s life when he truly begins to discover himself. The latent capacities of every man are greater than he realizes, and he may find them if he diligently seeks for them. A man may own a tract of land for many years without knowing its value. He may think of it as merely a pasture. But one day he discovers evidences of coal and finds a rich vein beneath his land. While mining and prospecting for coal he discovers deposits of granite. In boring for water he strikes oil. Later he discovers a vein of copper ore, and after that silver and gold. These things were there all the time — even when he thought of his land merely as a pasture. But they have a value only when they are discovered and utilized.
“Not every pasture contains deposits of silver and gold, neither oil nor granite, nor even coal. But beneath the surface of every man there must be, in the nature of things, a latent capacity greater than has yet been discovered. And one discovery must lead to another until the man finds the deep wealth of his own possibilities. History is full of the acts of men who discovered somewhat of their own capacity; but history has yet to record the man who fully discovered all that be might have been.”
Everything that has been done, thought, gained, or been is in Universal Mind. And you are a part of Universal Mind. You have access to it. You can call upon it for all you need in the same way you can go to your files or to a library for information. If you can realize this fact, you will find in it the key to the control of every circumstance, the solution of every problem, the satisfaction of every right desire.
But to use that key, you’ve got to bear in mind the three requisites of faith in your powers, initiative, and courage to start. “Who would stand before a blackboard,” says “Science and Health,” “and pray the principle of mathematics to solve the problem? The rule is already established, and it is our task to work out the solution.” In the same way, all knowledge you can need is in Universal Mind, but it is up to you to tap that mind.
And without the three requisites you will never do it.
Never let discouragement hold you back. Discouragement is the most dangerous feeling there is, because it is the most insidious. Generally it is looked upon as harmless, and for that very reason it is the more sinister. For failure and success are oftentimes separated by only the distance of that one word — Discouragement.
There is an old-time fable that the devil once held a sale and offered all the tools of his trade to anyone who would pay their price. They were spread out on the table, each one labeled — hatred, and malice, and envy, and despair, and sickness, and sensuality -all the weapons that everyone knows so well.
But off on one side, apart from the rest, lay a harmless looking, wedge-shaped instrument marked “Discouragement.” It was old and worn looking, but it was priced far above all the rest. When asked the reason why, the devil replied:
“Because I can use this one so much more easily than the others. No one knows that it belongs to me, so with it I can open doors that are tight bolted against the others. Once I get inside I can use any tool that suits me best.”
No one ever knows how small is the margin between failure and success. Frequently the two are separated only by the width of that one word — discouragement. Ask Ford, ask Edison, ask any successful man and he will tell you how narrow is the chasm that separates failure from success, how surely it can be bridged by perseverance and faith.
Cultivate confidence in yourself. Cultivate the feeling that you ARE succeeding. Know that you have unlimited power to do every right thing. Know that with Universal Mind to draw upon, no position is too difficult, and no problem too hard. “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.” When you put limitations upon yourself, when you doubt your ability to meet any situation, you are placing a limit upon Universal Mind, for “The Father that is within me, He doeth the works.”
With that knowledge of your power, with that confidence in the unlimited resources of Universal Mind, it is easy enough to show initiative, it is easy enough to find the courage to start things.
You have a right to dominion over all things — over your body, your environment, your business, your health. Develop these three requisites and you will gain that dominion. Remember that you are a part of Universal Mind, and that the part shares every property of the whole. Remember that, as the spark of electricity to the thunderbolt, so is your mind to Universal Mind. Whatever of good you may desire of life, whatever qualification, whatever position, you have only to work for it whole heartedly, confidently, with singleness of purpose — and you can get it.
Chapter 13 — That Old Witch: Bad Luck
Has that old witch — bad luck — ever camped on your doorstep? Have ill health, misfortune and worry ever seemed to dog your footsteps?
If so, you will be interested in knowing that YOU were the procuring cause of all that trouble. For fear is merely creative thought in negative form.
Remember back in 1920 how fine the business outlook seemed, how everything looked rosy and life flowed along like a song? We had crops worth ten billions of dollars. We had splendid utilities, great railways, almost unlimited factory capacity. Everyone was busy. The government had a billion dollars in actual money. The banks were sound. The people were well employed. Wages were good. Prosperity was general. Then something happened. A wave of fear swept over the country. The prosperity could not last. People wouldn’t pay such high prices. There was too much inflation. What was the result?
As Job put it in the long ago, “The thing that I greatly feared has come upon me.”
The prosperity vanished almost over night. Failures became general. Hundreds of thousands were thrown out of work. And all because of panic, fear. Tis true that readjustments were necessary. Tis true that prices were too high, that inventories were too big, that values generally were inflated.
But it wasn’t necessary to burst the balloon to let out the gas. There are orderly natural processes of readjustment that bring things to their proper level with the least harm to anyone.
But fear — panic — knows no reason. It brings into being overnight the things that it fears. It is the greatest torment of humanity. It is about all there is to Hell. Fear is, in short, the devil. It causes most of the sin, disaster, disease and misery of the world. It is the only thing you can put into business, which won’t draw dividends in either fun or dollars. If you guess right, you don’t get any satisfaction out of it.
The real cause of all sickness is fear. You image some disease in your thought, and your body proceeds to build upon this model that you hold before it. You have seen how fear makes the face pallid, how it first stops the beating of the heart, then sets it going at trip-hammer pace. Fear changes the secretions. Fear halts the digestion. Fear puts lines and wrinkles into the face. Fear turns the hair gray.
Mind controls every function of the human body. If the thought you hold before your subconscious mind is the fear of disease, of colds or catarrh, of fever or indigestion, those are the images your subconscious mind will work out in your body. For your body itself is merely so much matter — an aggregation of protons and electrons, just as the table in front of you is an aggregation of these same buttons of force, but with a different density. Take away your mind, and your body is just as inert, just as lifeless, and just as senseless, as the table. Every function
