The Prosperity & Wealth Bible. Kahlil Gibran

in, but go ahead, confidently, knowing that your wish is working itself out. Know this, believe it — and if there is nothing harmful in it, IT WILL WORK OUT!

      For somewhere in Universal Mind there exists the correct solution of every problem. It matters not how stupendous and complicated, nor how simple a problem may appear to be. There always exists the right solution in Universal Mind. And because this solution does exist, there also exists the ability to ascertain and to prove what that solution is. You can know, and you can do, every right thing. Whatever it is necessary for you to know, whatever it is necessary for you to do, you can know and you can do, if you will but seek the help of Universal Mind and be governed by its suggestions.

      Try this method every night for a little while, and the problem does not exist that you cannot solve.

      Chapter 6 — See Yourself Doing It

      You’ve often heard it said that a man is worth $2 a day from the neck down. How much he’s worth from the neck up depends upon how much he is able to SEE.

      “Without vision the people perish” did not refer to good eyesight. It was the eyes of the mind that counted in days of old just as they do today. Without them you are just so much power “on the hoof,” to be driven as a horse or an ox is driven. And you are worth only a little more than they.

      But given vision — imagination — the ability to visualize conditions and things a month or a year ahead; given the eyes of the mind — there’s no limit to your value or to your capabilities.

      The locomotive, the steamboat, the automobile, the aeroplane — all existed complete in the imagination of some man before ever they became facts. The wealthy men, the big men, the successful men, envisioned their successes in their minds’ eyes before ever they won them from the world. From the beginning of time, nothing has ever taken on material shape without first being visualized in mind. The only difference between the sculptor and the mason is in the mental image behind their work. Rodin employed masons to hew his blocks of marble into the general shape of the figure he was about to form. That was mere mechanical labor. Then Rodin took it in hand and from that rough-hewn piece of stone there sprang the wondrous figure of “The Company.

      That was art!

      The difference was all in the imagination behind the hands that wielded mallet and chisel. After Rodin had formed his masterpiece, ordinary workmen copied it by the thousands. Rodin’s work brought fabulous sums. The copies brought day wages. Conceiving ideas — creating something — is what pays, in sculpture as in all else. Mere handwork is worth only hand wages.

      “The imagination,” says Glenn Clark in “The Soul’s Sincere Desire,” “is of all qualities in man the most God-like — that which associates him most closely with God. The first mention we read of man in the Bible is where he is spoken of as an ‘image.’ ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ The only place where an image can be conceived is in the imagination. Thus man, the highest creation of God, was a creation of God’s imagination.

      “The source and center of all man’s creative power — the power that above all others lifts him above the level of brute creation, and that gives him dominion, is his power of making images, or the power of the imagination. There are some who have always thought that the imagination was something, which makes-believe that which is not. This is fancy — not imagination. Fancy would convert that which is real into pretense and sham; imagination enables one to see through the appearance of a thing to what it really is.”

      There is a very real law of cause and effect, which makes the dream of the dreamer come true. It is the law of visualization — the law that calls into being in this outer material world everything that is real in the inner world. Imagination pictures the thing you desire. VISION idealizes it. It reaches beyond the thing that is, into the conception of what can be. Imagination gives you the picture. Vision gives you the impulse to make the picture your own.

      Make your mental image clear enough, picture it vividly in every detail, and the Genie-of-your-Mind will speedily bring it into being as an everyday reality.

      That law holds true of everything in life. There is nothing you can rightfully desire that cannot be brought into being through visualization.

      Suppose there’s a position you want — the general manager-ship of your company. See yourself — just as you are now — sitting in the general manager’s chair. See your name on his door. See yourself handling his affairs as you would handle them. Get that picture impressed upon your subconscious mind. See it! Believe it! The Genie-of-your-Mind will find the way to make it come true.

      The keynote of successful visualization is this: See things, as you would have them be instead of as they are. Close your eyes and make clear mental pictures. Make them look and act just as they would in real life. In short, daydream — but day dream with a purpose. Concentrate on the one idea to the exclusion of all others, and continue to concentrate on that one idea until it has been accomplished.

      Do you want an automobile? A home? A factory? They can all be won in the same way. They are in their essence all of them ideas of mind, and if you will but build them up in your own mind first, stone by stone, complete in every detail, you will find that the Genie-of-your-Mind can build them up similarly in the material world.

      “The building of a trans-continental railroad from a mental picture,” says C. W. Chamberlain in “The Uncommon Sense of Applied Psychology,” “gives the average individual an idea that it is a big job. The fact of the matter is, the achievement, as well as the perfect mental picture, is made up of millions of little jobs, each fitting in its proper place and helping to make up the whole.

      “A skyscraper is built from individual bricks, the laying of each brick being a single job which must be completed before the next brick can be laid.”

      It is the same with any work, any study. To quote Professor James:

      “As we become permanent drunkards by so many separate drinks, so we become saints in the moral, and authorities and experts in the practical and scientific spheres, by so many separate acts and hours of working. Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education whatever the line of it may be. If he keeps faithfully busy each hour of the working day he may safely leave the final result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking some fine morning, to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation, in whatever pursuit he may have singled out... Young people should know this truth in advance. The ignorance of it has probably engendered more discouragement and faintheartedness in youths embarking on arduous careers than all other causes taken together.”

      Remember that the only limit to your capabilities is the one you place upon them. There is no law of limitation. The only law is of supply. Through your subconscious mind you can draw upon universal supply for anything you wish. The ideas of Universal Mind are as countless as the sands on the seashore. Use them. And use them lavishly, just as they are given. There is a little poem by Jessie B. Rittenhouse that so well describes the limitations that most of us put upon ourselves that I quote it here: “I bargained with Life for a penny, And Life would pay no more, however I begged at evening when I counted my scanty store.

      For Life is a just employer;

      He gives you what you ask,

      But once you have set the wages,

      Why, you must bear the task.

      I worked for a menial’s hire,

      Only to learn, dismayed,

      That any wage I had asked of Life,

      Life would have paid.

      Aim high! If you miss the moon, you may hit a star. Everyone admits that this world and all the vast firmament must have been thought into shape from the formless void by some Universal Mind. That same Universal Mind rules today, and it has given to each form of life power to attract to itself whatever it needs for its perfect growth. The tree, the plant, and the animal — each one finds its need.

      You are an intelligent, reasoning creature.