The Book of Life. Robert Collier

And that as such, no evil has power over you, whereas you have all power for good. And “good” means not merely holiness. Good means happiness—the happiness of everyday people. Good means everything that is good in this world of ours—comforts and pleasures and prosperity for us, health and happiness for those dependent upon us. There are no limits to “Good” except those we put upon it ourselves.

      What was it made Napoleon the greatest conqueror of his day? Primarily his magnificent faith in Napoleon. He had a sublime belief in his destiny, an absolute confidence that the obstacle was not made which Napoleon could not find a way through, or over, or around. It was only when he lost that confidence, when he hesitated and vacillated for weeks between retreat and advance, that winter caught him in Moscow and ended his dreams of world empire. Fate gave him every chance first. The winter snows were a full month late in coming. But Napoleon hesitated—and was lost. It was not the snows that defeated him. It was not the Russians. It was his loss of faith in himself.

      The Kingdom of Heaven

      “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” Heaven is not some far-away state—the reward of years of tribulation here. Heaven is right here—here and now! When Christ said that Heaven was within us, He meant just what He said—that the power for happiness, for good, for everything we need of life, is within each one of us.

      That most of us fail to realize this Heaven—that many are sickly and suffering, that more are ground down by poverty and worry—is no fault of His. He gave us the power to overcome these evils; He stands ready and waiting to help us use it. If we fail to find the way, the fault is ours. To enjoy the Heaven that is within us, to begin here and now to live the life eternal, takes only a fuller understanding of the Power-that-is-within-us.

      Even now, with the limited knowledge at our command, we can control circumstances to the point of making the world without an expression of our own world within, where the real thoughts, the real power, resides. Through this world within you can find the solution of every problem, the cause for every effect. Discover it—and all power, all possession is within your control.

      For the world without is but a reflection of that world within. Your thought creates the conditions your mind images. Keep before your mind’s eye the image of all you want to be and you will see it reflected in the world without. Think abundance, feel abundance, believe abundance, and you will find that as you think and feel and believe, abundance will manifest itself in your daily life. But let fear and worry be your mental companions, thoughts of poverty and limitation dwell in your mind, and worry and fear, limitation and poverty will be your constant companions day and night.

      Your mental concept is all that matters. Its relation to matter is that of idea and form. There has got to be an idea before it can take form. As Dr. Terry Walter says:

       “The impressions that enter the subconscious form indelible pictures, which are never forgotten, and whose power can change the body, mind, manner, and morals; can, in fact, revolutionize a personality.

       “All during our waking hours the conscious mind, through the five senses, acts as constant feeder to the subconscious; the senses are the temporal source of supply for the content of the soul mind; therefore it is most important that we know and realize definitely and explicitly that every time we think a thought or feel an emotion, we are adding to the content of this powerful mind, good or bad, as the case may be. Life will be richer or poorer for the thoughts and deeds of today.”

      Your thoughts supply you with limitless energy, which will take whatever form your mind demands. The thoughts are the mold, which crystallizes this energy into good, or ill according to the form you impress upon it. You are free to choose which. But whichever you choose, the result is sure. Thoughts of wealth, of power, of success, can bring only results commensurate with your idea of them. Thoughts of poverty and lack can bring only limitation and trouble.

      “A radical doctrine,” you’ll say, and think me wildly optimistic. Because the world has been taught for so long to think that some must be rich and some poor, that trials and tribulations are our lot. That this is at best a vale of tears.

      The history of the race shows that what is considered to be the learning of one age is ignorance to the next age.

      Dr. Edwin E. Slosson, Editor of Science Service, speaking of the popular tendency to fight against new ideas merely because they were new, said: “All through the history of science, we find that new ideas have to force their way into the common mind in disguise, as though they were burglars instead of benefactors of the race.”

      And Emerson wrote: “The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.”

      In the ages to come man will look back upon the poverty and wretchedness of so many millions today, and think how foolish we were not to take advantage of the abundance all about us. Look at Nature; how profuse she is in everything. Do you suppose the Mind that imaged that profuseness ever intended you to be limited, to have to scrimp and save in order to eke out a bare existence?

      There are hundreds of millions of stars in the heavens. Do you suppose the Mind, which could bring into being worlds without number in such prodigality intended to stint you of the few things necessary to your happiness?

      What is money but a mere idea of mind, a token of exchange? The paper money you have in your pockets is supposed to represent so much gold or silver currency. There are billions upon billions of this paper money in circulation, yet all the gold in the world amounts to only about $8,000,000,000. Wealth is in ideas, not in money or property. You can control those ideas through mind.

      Reduced to the ultimate—to the atom or to the electron—everything in this world is an idea of mind. All of it has been brought together through mind. If we can change the things we want back into mental images, we can multiply them as often as we like, possessing all that we like.

      “To Him That Hath”—

      Take as an example the science of numbers. Suppose all numbers were of metal—that it was against the law to write figures for ourselves. Every time you wanted to do a sum in arithmetic you’d have to provide yourself with a supply of numbers, arrange them in their proper order, work out your problems with them. If your problems were too abstruse you might run out of numbers, have to borrow some from your neighbor or from the bank.

      “How ridiculous,” you say. “Figures are not things; they are mere ideas, and we can add them or divide them or multiply them or subtract them as often as we like. Anybody can have all the figures he wants.”

      To be sure he can. And when you get to look upon money in the same way, you will have all the money you want.

      “To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” To him that hath the right idea everything shall be given, and from him who hath not that right idea shall be taken away everything he hath.

      Thought externalizes itself. What we are depends entirely upon the images we hold before our mind’s eye. Every time we think, we start a chain of causes, which will create conditions similar to the thoughts, which originated it. Every thought we hold in our consciousness for any length of time becomes impressed upon our subconscious mind and creates a pattern, which the mind weaves into our life or environment.

      All power is from within and is therefore under our own control. When you can direct your thought processes, you can consciously apply them to any condition, for all that comes to us from the world without is what we’ve already imaged in the world within.

      Do you want more money? Sit you down now quietly and realize that money is merely an idea. That your mind is possessed of unlimited ideas. That being part of Universal Mind, there is no such thing as limitation or lack. That somewhere, somehow, the ideas that shall bring you all the money you need for any right purpose are available for you. That you have but to put it up to your subconscious mind