The Prosperity & Wealth Bible. Kahlil Gibran

sense. Your subconscious mind has all power, but your conscious mind is the watchman at the gate. It has got to open the door. It has got to press the spring that releases the infinite energy. No failure is possible in the accomplishment of any right object you may have in life, if you but understand your power and will perseveringly try to use it in the proper way.

      The men who have made their mark in this world all had one trait in common-they believed in themselves! “But,” you may say, “how can I believe in myself when I have never yet done anything worthwhile, when everything I put my hand to seems to fail?” You can’t, of course. That is, you couldn’t if you had to depend upon your conscious mind alone. But just remember what one far greater than you said — “I can of mine own self do nothing. The Father that is within me — He doeth the works.”

      That same “Father” is within you. And it is by knowing that He is in you, and that through Him you can do anything that is right, that you can acquire that belief in yourself which is so necessary. Certainly the Mind that imaged the heavens and the earth and all that they contain has all wisdom, all power, and all abundance. With this Mind to call upon, you know there is no problem too difficult for you to undertake. The knowing of this is the first step. Faith. But St. James tells us — “Faith without works is dead.” So go on to the next step. Decide on the one thing you want most from life. No matter what it may be. There is no limit, you know, to Mind. Visualize this thing that you want. See it, feel it, BELIEVE in it. Make your mental blueprint, and begin to build!

      Suppose some people DO laugh at your idea. Suppose Reason does say — “It can’t be done!” People laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Henry Ford. Reason contended for countless ages that the earth was flat. Reason said — or so numerous automotive engineers argued — that the Ford motor wouldn’t run. But the earth is round — and the twelfth or fifteenth million Ford is on the road.

      Let us start right now putting into practice some of these truths that you have learned. What do you want most of life right now? Take that one desire, concentrate on it, and impress it upon your subconscious mind.

      Psychologists have discovered that the best time to make suggestions to your subconscious mind is just before going to sleep, when the senses are quiet and the attention is lax. So let us take your desire and suggest it to your subconscious mind tonight. The two prerequisites are the earnest DESIRE, and an intelligent, understanding BELIEF. Someone has said, you know, that education is three-fourths encouragement, and the encouragement is the suggestion that the thing can be done.

      You know that you can have what you want; if you want it badly enough and can believe in it earnestly enough. So tonight, just before you drop off to sleep, concentrate your thought on this thing that you most desire from life. BELIEVE that you have it. SEE YOURSELF possessing it. FEEL yourself using it. Do that every night until you ACTUALLY DO BELIEVE that you have the thing you want. When you reach that point, YOUWILL HAVE IT!

      Chapter 10 — “This Freedom”

      I have heard that quotation ever since I was a little child. Most of us have. But to me it was never anything much but a quotation — until a few years ago. It is only in the past several years that I have begun to get an inkling of the real meaning of it — an understanding of the comfort back of it. Perhaps to you, too, it has been no more than a sonorous phrase. If so, you will be interested in what I have since gotten from it.

      To begin with, what is the “truth” that is so often referred to in all our religious teaching? The truth about what? And what is it going to free us from?

      The truth as I see it now is the underlying reality in everything we meet in life. There is, for instance, one right way to solve any given problem in mathematics. That one right way is the truth as far as that problem is concerned. To know it is to free yourself from all doubt and vain imagining and error. It is to free yourself from any trouble that might arise through solving the problem incorrectly.

      In the same way, there is but one BEST way of solving every situation that confronts you. That BEST way is the truth. To know it is to make you free from all worry or trouble in connection with that situation. For if it is met in the RIGHT way, only good can come of it.

      Then there is your body. There is only one RIGHT idea of every organism in your body. One CORRECT method of functioning for each of them. And Universal Mind holds that RIGHT idea, that CORRECT method. The functioning of your body, the rebuilding of each cell and tissue, is the work of your subconscious mind. If you will constantly hold before it the thought that its model is perfection, that weakness or sickness or deformity is merely ABSENCE of perfection — not a reality in itself — in short, if you will realize the Truth concerning your body, your subconscious mind will speedily make you free and keep you free from every ill.

      It matters not what is troubling you today. If you will KNOW that whatever it may seem to be is merely the absence of the true idea, if you will realize that the only thing that counts is the truth that Universal Mind knows about your body, you can make that truth manifest.

      Affirm the good, the true — and the evil will vanish. It is like turning on the light — the darkness immediately disappears. For there is no actual substance in darkness — it is merely absence of light. Nor is there any substance in sickness or evil — it is merely the absence of health or good.

      That is the truth that was the mentality of Jesus — what Paul describes as “the mind, which was also in Christ Jesus.”

      Jesus declared that “we should know the truth, and the truth would make us free.” That truth was the power, which He exercised. He had so perfect an understanding of truth that it gave Him absolute dominion over evil, enabled Him to heal diseases of every nature, even to raise the dead. The power that He exercised then was not confined to His time, nor limited to His own immediate followers. “Lo, I am with you always,” He said, “even unto the end of the world.” And He is just as available to us now as He was to His own disciples 1900 years ago.

      “I have given you power to tread serpents and scorpions under foot and to trample on all the power of the enemy; and in no case shall anything do you harm.”

      That gift was never meant to be confined to His own disciples or to any other one group. God has never dealt in special or temporary gifts. He gives to all — to all who will accept — to all who have an understanding heart.

      All sickness, all poverty, all sorrow, is the result of the incorrect use of some gift of God, which in itself is inherently good. It is just as though we took the numbers that were given us to work out a problem, and put them in the wrong places. The result would be incorrect, inharmonious. We would not be expressing the truth. The moment we rearrange those numbers properly, we get the correct answer — harmony — the truth! There was nothing wrong with the principle of mathematics before — the fault was all with us, with our incorrect arrangement of the figures.

      What is true of the principle of mathematics is true of every principle. The principle is changeless, undying. It is only our expression of the principle that changes as our understanding of it becomes more thorough. Lightning held only terror for man until he made of electricity his servant. Steam was only so much waste until man learned to harness it. Fire and water are the most destructive forces known — until properly used, and then they are man’s greatest helpers. There is nothing wrong with any gift of God — once we find the way to use it. The truth is always there if we can find the principle behind it. The figures in mathematics are never bad. It is merely our incorrect arrangement of them.

      The great need is an open mind and the desire for understanding. How far in the science of mathematics would you get if you approached the study of it with the preconceived notion that two plus two makes five, and nothing you heard to the contrary was going to change that belief? “Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

      You must drop all your preconceived ideas, all your prejudices. You must never say — “Oh, that sounds like so-and-so. I don’t want any of it.” Just remember that any great movement must have at least a grain of truth back of it, else it could never grow to