The Prosperity & Wealth Bible. Kahlil Gibran

into one powerful channel.

      Just as a useless marsh may be converted into a field of golden corn or a fruitful garden by draining and directing the scattered and harmful streams into one well-cut channel, so, he who acquires calmness, and subdues and directs the thought currents within himself, saves his soul, and fructifies his heart and life.

      As you succeed in gaining mastery over your impulses and thoughts you will begin to feel, growing up within you, a new and silent power, and a settled feeling of composure and strength will remain with you.

      Your latent powers will begin to unfold themselves, and whereas formerly your efforts were weak and ineffectual, you will now be able to work with that calm confidence which commands success.

      And along with this new power and strength, there will be awakened within you that interior Illumination known as “intuition,” and you will walk no longer in darkness and speculation, but in light and certainty.

      With the development of this soul-vision, judgment and mental penetration will be incalculably increased, and there will evolve within you that prophetic vision by the aid of which you will be able to sense coming events, and to forecast, with remarkable accuracy, the result of your efforts.

      And in just the measure that you alter from within will your outlook upon life alter; and as you alter your mental attitude towards others they will alter in their attitude and conduct toward you.

      As you rise above the lower, debilitating, and destructive thought-forces, you will come in contact with the positive, strengthening, and up-building currents generated by strong, pure, and noble minds, your happiness will be immeasurably intensified, and you will begin to realize the joy, strength, and power, which are born only of self-mastery.

      And this joy, strength, and power will be continually radiating from you, and without any effort on your part, nay, though you are utterly unconscious of it, strong people will be drawn toward you, influence will be put into your hands, and in accordance with your altered thought-world will outward events shape themselves.

      “A man’s foes are they of his own household,” and he who would be useful, strong, and happy, must cease to be a passive receptacle for the negative, beggardly, and impure streams of thought; and as a wise householder commands his servants and invites his guests, so must he learn to command his desires, and to say, with authority, what thoughts he shall admit into the mansion of his soul.

      Even a very partial success in self-mastery adds greatly to one’s power, and he who succeeds in perfecting this divine accomplishment, enters into possession of undreamed-of wisdom and inward strength and peace, and realizes that all the forces of the universe aid and protect his footsteps who is master of his soul.

      Would you scale the highest heaven,

      Would you pierce the lowest hell,

      Live in dreams of constant beauty,

      Or in basest thinkings dwell.

      For your thoughts are heaven above you,

      And your thoughts are hell below,

      Bliss is not, except in thinking,

      Torment nought but thought can know.

      Worlds would vanish but for thinking;

      Glory is not but in dreams;

      And the Drama of the ages

      From the Thought Eternal streams.

      Dignity and shame and sorrow,

      Pain and anguish, love and hate

      Are but maskings of the mighty

      Pulsing Thought that governs Fate.

      As the colors of the rainbow

      Makes the one uncolored beam,

      So the universal changes

      Make the One Eternal Dream.

      And the Dream is all within you,

      And the Dreamer waiteth long

      For the Morning to awake him

      To the living thought and strong.

      That shall make the ideal real,

      Make to vanish dreams of hell

      In the highest, holiest heaven

      Where the pure and perfect dwell.

      Evil is the thought that thinks it;

      Good, the thought that makes it so

      Light and darkness, sin and pureness

      Likewise out of thinking grow.

      Dwell in thought upon the Grandest,

      And the Grandest you shall see;

      Fix your mind upon the Highest,

      And the Highest you shall be.

      Chapter 5 — The Secret of Health, Success and Power

      We all remember with what intense delight, as children, we listened to the never-tiring fairy-tale. How eagerly we followed the fluctuating fortunes of the good boy or girl, ever protected, in the hour of crisis, from the evil machinations of the scheming witch, the cruel giant, or the wicked king.

      And our little hearts never faltered for the fate of the hero or heroine, nor did we doubt their ultimate triumph over all their enemies, for we knew that the fairies were infallible, and that they would never desert those who had consecrated themselves to the good and the true.

      And what unspeakable joy pulsated within us when the Fairy-Queen, bringing all her magic to bear at the critical moment, scattered all the darkness and trouble, and granted them the complete satisfaction of all their hopes, and they were “happy ever after.”

      With the accumulating years, and an ever-increasing intimacy with the so-called “realities” of life, our beautiful fairy-world became obliterated, and its wonderful inhabitants were relegated, in the archives of memory, to the shadowy and unreal.

      And we thought we were wise and strong in thus leaving for ever the land of childish dreams, but as we re-become little children in the wondrous world of wisdom, we shall return again to the inspiring dreams of childhood and find that they are, after all, realities.

      The fairy-folk, so small and nearly always invisible, yet possessed of an all-conquering and magical power, who bestow upon the good, health, wealth, and happiness, along with all the gifts of nature in lavish profusion, start again into reality and become immortalized in the soul-realm of him who, by growth in wisdom, has entered into a knowledge of the power of thought, and the laws which govern the inner world of being.

      To him the fairies live again as thought-people, thought-messengers, thought-powers working in harmony with the over-ruling Good. And they who, day by day, endeavor to harmonize their hearts with the heart of the Supreme Good, do in reality acquire true health, wealth, and happiness.

      There is no protection to compare with goodness, and by “goodness” I do not mean a mere outward conformity to the rules of morality; I mean pure thought, noble aspiration, unselfish love, and freedom from vainglory.

      To dwell continually in good thoughts, is to throw around oneself a psychic atmosphere of sweetness and power which leaves its impress upon all who come in contact with it.

      As the rising sun puts to rout the helpless shadows, so are all the impotent forces of evil put to flight by the searching rays of positive thought which shine forth from a heart made strong in purity and faith.

      Where there is sterling faith and uncompromising purity there is health, there is success, there is power. In such a one, disease, failure, and disaster can find no lodgment, for there is nothing on which they can feed.

      Even physical conditions are largely determined by mental states, and to this truth the scientific world is rapidly being drawn.