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- Herausgeber: Musaicum Books
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
In 'Achieve the Highest Potential', Robert Collier delves into the power of the mind and its ability to shape reality. The book presents practical methods for setting and achieving goals, emphasizing the importance of positive thinking and visualization. Collier's writing style is clear and concise, making complex concepts accessible to readers of all levels. Within the context of the self-help genre, 'Achieve the Highest Potential' stands out for its timeless wisdom and actionable advice. It serves as a motivational guide for those looking to unlock their full potential and manifest their dreams into reality. Collier's emphasis on the power of belief and intention resonates with readers seeking personal growth and transformation. Through anecdotes and illustrative examples, the author provides a roadmap for success and fulfillment. Recommended for anyone interested in harnessing the power of their mind to achieve their goals and live their best life. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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Achieve the Highest Potential - Collier Books
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Between the urge to realize one’s possibilities and the inertia of everyday habit, this book stakes a confident claim that directed thought—clarified by purpose and backed by steady action—can turn latent potential into lived results, challenging readers to examine how intention, imagination, and persistence interact to produce outcomes, how inner conviction can be trained rather than wished into being, and how a disciplined mental program, applied to the practical spheres of work, relationships, and personal growth, offers a repeatable path from vague desire to tangible achievement without recourse to mysticism or resignation to circumstances.
Achieve the Highest Potential, presented in a Collier Books edition, stands within the American personal development tradition shaped by New Thought ideas in the first half of the twentieth century. Its author, Robert Collier, wrote widely about the disciplined use of thought for practical ends, addressing readers engaged in commerce, creative pursuits, and everyday self-improvement. Rather than being tied to a specific historical event or locale, the book is set in the inner workshop of motive and decision, where attitudes and choices are forged. As a genre entry, it blends motivational counsel with pragmatic guidance aimed at measurable gains.
Without relying on narrative suspense, the book unfolds as a sequence of arguments, examples, and encouragements showing how focused thought organizes effort and invites opportunity. Collier’s voice is earnest and directive yet conversational, favoring clear analogies and straightforward reasoning over ornament. The style is paced for application, returning to core principles from different angles so that repetition becomes reinforcement rather than rhetoric. The tone remains practical and optimistic, stressing what the reader can do next. The reading experience resembles guided practice: short expositions, concrete illustrations, and actionable suggestions that nudge the reader from reflection toward disciplined follow-through.
Central themes include the primacy of purpose, the generative power of imagination when anchored to definite aims, and the alignment of belief with persistent action. The book treats desire as a starting signal, not a guarantee, emphasizing the cultivation of habits that support clear objectives. It also explores how attention functions as a scarce resource, shaping what opportunities are noticed and pursued. Ethical success—creating value for others while advancing one’s goals—appears as a practical necessity, not merely an ideal. These concerns remain current, because they foreground agency in a world crowded with distraction, doubt, and contradictory advice.
Readers encounter principles that combine mindset with method: defining aims precisely, visualizing results in practical detail, organizing daily actions around priorities, and interpreting setbacks as feedback. Collier illustrates how consistent self-direction can accumulate marginal gains until momentum appears, drawing examples from business, selling, and personal endeavor. The book avoids esoteric language; it frames consciousness as a tool to be trained through attention, affirmation, and practice, while insisting that effort and persistence remain decisive. The underlying promise is not instant transformation but reproducible improvement, achieved by aligning thought, intention, and schedule so that commitment becomes observable and measurable.
For contemporary readers navigating volatile careers, rapid technology shifts, and constant information flow, the book’s counsel on clarity and consistent effort is pointedly relevant. Its methods help entrepreneurs structure initiatives, professionals reframe performance plateaus, and students convert aspiration into routine. The argument also intersects with current research conversations about attention, habits, and motivation, though it remains a practical manual rather than a scientific treatise. By foregrounding responsibility and hope together, it counters both fatalism and magical thinking. Its enduring value lies in making achievement a process—plan, act, adjust—rather than a personality trait or a lucky break.
Approach these pages as a workshop more than a lecture, bringing a notebook, a candid inventory of current aims, and a willingness to iterate. If you prefer case studies, you will find illustrative sketches; if you prefer steps, you will find directives that can be scheduled and tracked. Collier’s emphasis on inner preparation does not replace external skill-building; rather, it organizes it, so practice compounds. Read steadily, test modestly, and expand what works. In doing so, you will discover the book’s central gift: a way to turn intention into structure, and structure into sustained, purposeful progress.
Synopsis
Robert Collier’s self-help work presents a systematic argument that personal achievement begins with the interior life of thought, desire, and purpose. Drawing from the New Thought tradition, he outlines how mental attitudes precede and shape external results, yet grounds his discussion in practical directives rather than theory alone. The book opens by asking readers to take stock of their deepest aims and the motives behind them, contending that vague wishes dissipate effort while clear intention concentrates it. From this starting point, Collier frames achieving one’s highest potential as a disciplined process that marries inner conviction with persistent, intelligently directed action.
Collier’s first major movement establishes desire as the initiating force. He differentiates transient wants from a definite objective that can organize attention and energy, suggesting that such definiteness acts like a compass for daily decisions. He describes how to hold this objective steadily in mind without strain, building a vivid mental picture that becomes a reference for choices. The text emphasizes that clarity is not mere optimism; it entails selecting priorities, saying no to distractions, and accepting responsibility for trade-offs. By refining the aim until it is unmistakable, the reader is prepared to match internal intent with outward plans.
With purpose defined, the argument turns to imagination and belief. Collier maintains that the mind’s pictures condition behavior by setting expectations, and he proposes methods to reinforce constructive images through repetition and feeling. He discusses the cooperation of conscious intention with deeper, automatic processes, arguing that sustained attention impresses ideas on the subconscious, which in turn influences perception, confidence, and initiative. The book portrays this inner alignment as a cause of increased alertness to opportunity, not a substitute for effort. Thought, in this view, acts as a blueprint that organizes effort and draws relevant resources into practical reach.
The next step links mentality to methodical effort. Collier stresses that purposeful thinking requires translation into concrete plans, measured tests, and steady execution. He advises breaking large aims into manageable tasks, acting promptly on available opportunities while remaining flexible to revise tactics. Persistence is framed not as stubbornness but as informed adjustment—learning from feedback without abandoning the central objective. The text also underscores the value of preparation, specialized knowledge, and the habit of finishing what one begins. In combining inner assurance with outward diligence, the book argues that initiative multiplies the effects of belief and accelerates cumulative progress.
Addressing obstacles, Collier analyzes common impediments such as fear, discouragement, and scattered effort. He recommends guarding attention, replacing unproductive lines of thought with constructive alternatives, and cultivating a climate of confidence through small, repeated wins. Failures are treated as information to refine approach rather than verdicts on capacity. The discussion includes the ethical dimension of ambition, noting that aims aligned with service and genuine usefulness tend to command more support and staying power. By anchoring behavior in principles such as integrity, fairness, and reliability, the reader builds reputational capital that complements skill and sustains momentum through setbacks.
Having laid out principles, the book explores their application across work, finances, relationships, and personal growth. Collier illustrates how the same sequence—clear aim, mental image, belief, plan, and sustained action—can guide career development, entrepreneurial efforts, and the cultivation of habits that support health and creativity. He highlights the compounding effect of daily routines, the strategic use of time, and the importance of surrounding oneself with influences that reinforce the chosen objective. The text encourages practical experimentation, calibrating plans to circumstances while maintaining the inner picture intact, so that progress proceeds both by deliberate design and adaptive learning.
In closing, Collier integrates the elements into a cohesive practice: begin with definite desire, fortify it with constructive imagery and conviction, and prove it through consistent, ethical work. The book’s enduring resonance lies in its synthesis of metaphysical insight with pragmatic method, presenting achievement as a partnership between thought and disciplined action rather than a product of chance. Without relying on sensational promises, it offers a program of self-direction that readers can tailor to their circumstances. Its central contention—that inner governance of attention and purpose can reorganize outer conditions—continues to inform contemporary discussions of motivation and personal effectiveness.
Historical Context
Robert Collier wrote during the first half of the twentieth century in the United States, a period that saw the rise of mass-market publishing, mail-order commerce, and new currents in popular psychology. Born in 1885 in St. Louis and active in New York publishing, he moved within institutions shaped by his family’s enterprise: P. F. Collier & Son and the magazine Collier’s Weekly. The era’s burgeoning advertising industry and expanding postal system made personal-improvement literature widely accessible. Against this backdrop, Collier developed a voice that blended practical salesmanship with the New Thought movement’s emphasis on mind power and spiritualized success.
New Thought emerged in the late nineteenth century and matured by the 1910s–1930s through organizations such as the Unity School of Christianity and Religious Science, alongside the earlier influence of Christian Science. It taught that constructive thought, prayer, and visualization could shape experience. Popularizers like Emile Coué spread autosuggestion internationally in the 1920s, while William James and later popular psychology gave lay audiences language for the “subconscious.” Collier’s formulations drew from this environment, presenting success as a lawful outcome of mental direction. His work echoed contemporaries who framed prosperity as a harmony of spiritual conviction, disciplined imagination, and persistent, measurable effort.
The professional world that shaped Collier was direct-response advertising and mail-order publishing. The U.S. Post Office’s parcel post (1913) and Rural Free Delivery expanded markets, while figures like Claude Hopkins promoted testable, data-driven copywriting. The Federal Trade Commission, created in 1914, signaled growing scrutiny of promotional claims. Collier learned to craft persuasive appeals at P. F. Collier & Son and later codified techniques in The Robert Collier Letter Book (1931), a widely studied manual for marketers. This training informed his self-help prose, which repeatedly emphasizes specific goals, clear mental images, and actionable steps rather than purely abstract inspiration.
Collier’s best-known success text, The Secret of the Ages (1926), appeared amid the optimistic consumer culture of the Roaring Twenties, when credit, mass production, and national advertising expanded aspirations. That optimism collapsed with the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression, an era of widespread unemployment and insecurity. Self-help titles promised usable guidance when institutions seemed unreliable. Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich (1937) and similar works thrived. Collier’s messages, already circulating, were reread as practical tools for recovery, emphasizing persistence, organized thinking, and faith in one’s creative capacity within an economy marked by volatility and constraint.
Religious life in the United States during Collier’s career mixed traditional Protestant ethics with metaphysical currents. New Thought writers, including Ernest Holmes in Science of Mind (1926), framed prayer and affirmation as lawful mental processes. At the same time, businessmen sought moral language to justify ambition in a competitive marketplace. Collier’s prose often quotes or paraphrases biblical passages, presenting spiritual causation as compatible with disciplined enterprise. This synthesis aligned with readers who wanted prosperity without abandoning faith commitments. It also placed his books within a wider conversation about whether material success could be construed as a legitimate expression of spiritual order.
After World War II, the paperback revolution broadened distribution for earlier titles. Collier Books, a paperback imprint launched in the early 1960s by the Crowell-Collier–Macmillan organization, reissued a wide range of works for mass audiences. New editions of Robert Collier’s writings circulated alongside classics and contemporary nonfiction, keeping his ideas in print well beyond his death in 1950. Such editions situated his thought within a mid-century marketplace that prized portable, inexpensive guides to self-improvement. For readers shaped by postwar mobility and corporate culture, Collier’s blend of mental discipline and pragmatic technique remained accessible through these widely stocked reprint programs.
Collier’s approach existed alongside critiques from scientific psychology and regulatory bodies wary of extravagant promises. Behaviorism and later clinical approaches emphasized observable conditioning and therapy over metaphysical causation, while truth-in-advertising standards tightened. Yet personal-success literature maintained a strong foothold, intersecting with management training and popular psychology by figures like Dale Carnegie, whose How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) stressed learned skills and empathy. Collier’s writings tended to bridge these currents, treating mental images and belief as catalysts for organized action. The result is a pragmatic idealism that resonated with readers seeking agency amid rapid technological and organizational change.
A Collier Books edition of Achieve the Highest Potential presents Collier’s signature synthesis to later generations: success as the disciplined alignment of thought, purpose, and daily work. Its historical tone reflects the optimism and anxieties of twentieth‑century America—confidence in individual agency coupled with awareness of economic shocks and institutional flux. By translating New Thought ideals into stepwise practices rooted in advertising-tested clarity, the book embodies its era’s faith in methods and systems. At the same time, it quietly critiques impersonal drift by insisting that inward conviction and persistent planning can counter volatility, extending the period’s self-help tradition into new contexts.
Achieve the Highest Potential - Collier Books
PROLOGUE
Why is it that most of the great men of the world, most of the unusually successful men, started life under a handicap?
Demosthenes[1], the greatest orator the ancient world produced, stuttered! The first time he tried to make a public speech, he was laughed off the rostrum. Julius Caesar was an epileptic. Napoleon was of humble parentage, and so poor that it was with the greatest difficulty that he got his appointment to the Military Academy. Far from being a born genius, he stood forty-sixth in his class at the Military Academy. And there were only sixty-five in the class. His shortness of stature and extreme poverty discouraged him to such an extent that in his early letters to friends, he frequently referred to thoughts of suicide.
Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and a number of our Presidents started life in the poorest and humblest of homes, with little education and no advantages. Stewart, who started what is now the John Wanamaker Store in New York, came to New York with $1.50 in his pocket, and no place where he could hope to get more until he himself earned it. Thomas Edison was a newsboy on trains. Andrew Carnegie started work at $4 a month. John D. Rockefeller at about $6 a week.
Reza Khan, who became Shah of Persia, started as an ordinary trooper in the Persian army. Mustapha Kemal, late Ruler of Turkey, was an unknown officer in the Turkish army. Ebert, first President of Germany after World War I, was a saddle maker. A number of our own Presidents were born in log cabins, without money, without education.
Sandow, the strongest man of his time, started life as a weakling. Annette Kellerman was lame and sickly, yet she became diving champion and one of the world’s most perfectly formed women. George Jowett was lame and a weakling until he was eleven years old. An older boy bullied him and beat him until he aroused such a feeling of resentment in young Jowett that he determined to work and exercise until he could pay back that bully in kind. In two years, he was able to beat the bully. In ten years, he was the world’s strongest man!
Why is it that men with such handicaps can outstrip all of those naturally favored by Nature? Why is it that the well-educated, well-trained men, with wealthy and influential friends to help them, are so often pushed aside, to make way for some “nobody” whose family no one ever heard of, but whose sheer ability and force make him a power to be reckoned with?
Why? Because men with early advantages are taught to look to material things for success ... to riches or friends or influence or their own training or abilities. And when these fail them, they are at a loss where to turn next.
But when a man has no special skill or ability or riches or influence, he has to look to something outside these for success, something beyond material means. So he turns to the God in him, to his cell of the God-Mind, and of that cell he demands that it bring him fame or fortune or power or position. What is more, if he continues to demand it with persistent faith, HE GETS IT!
You see, in every adversity there lies the seed of an equivalent advantage. In every defeat there is a lesson showing you how to win the victory next time. The turning point in the lives of most successful men has come at some moment of crisis, when everything looked dark, when there seemed no way out. That was when they turned to their inner selves, when they gave up hope in material means and looked to the God in them for help. That was when they were able to turn each stumbling block into a stepping-stone to success.
“Isn’t it strange that princes and kings, And clowns that caper in sawdust rings, And common folks like you and me, Are builders for eternity?
“Each is given a bag of tools, A shapeless mass, a book of rules; And each must make, ere life is flown, A stumbling block or a stepping stone.”
You are one with the great “I AM” of the universe. You are part of God. Until you realize that—and the power it gives you—you will never know God. “We are parts of one stupendous whole, whose body Nature is, and God the soul.” God has incarnated Himself in man. He seeks expression. Give Him work to do through you, give Him a chance to express Himself in some useful way, and there is nothing beyond your powers to do or to attain.
It matters not what your age, what your present circumstances or position. If you will seek your help outside your merely physical self, if you will put the God in you into some worthwhile endeavor, and then BELIEVE in Him, you can overcome any poverty, any handicap, any untoward circumstance. Relying upon your personal abilities or riches or friends is being like the heathen of old, whom the Prophet of the Lord taunted. “You have a God whom you must carry,” he derided them. “We have a God who carries us!”
The God of personal ability or material riches or friends is one that you must continually carry. Drop him, and immediately you lose everything. But there is a God in you who will carry you—and in the doing of it, provide you with every good thing this world can supply. The purpose of this book is to acquaint you with this God in you, The God That Only The Fortunate Few Know.
As the poet so well expressed it—
“In your own self lies Destiny. Let this Vast truth cast out all fear, and prejudice, All hesitation. Know that you are great, Great with Divinity. So dominate Environment and enter into bliss. Love largely and hate nothing. Hold no aim That does not chord with Universal Good. Hear what the voices of the Silence say— All joys are yours if you put forth your claim. Once let the spiritual laws be understood, Material things must answer and obey.”
Some might think that merely a poet’s dream, but along comes Dr. J. B. Rhine of Duke University to prove it scientific fact as well.
In his new book “The Reach of the Mind,” Dr. Rhine points out that in the past, Science seemed to feel that man was entirely material. It had discovered how glands regulate personality through their chemical secretions; it had shown that the child mind matures only as the brain develops; that certain mental functions are linked with specific areas of the brain, and that if one of these is injured, the corresponding mental function is lost.
So Science believed that it had accounted for all the processes of thought and action, that it could show a material basis for each.
But now Dr. Rhine and other experimenters have proved that knowledge can be acquired without the use of the senses!
Not only that, but they have also proved that the powers of the mind are not bound by space or limited by time I Perhaps their greatest discovery is that the mind can influence matter without physical means.
This has been done through prayer, of course, since time began, but such results have always been looked upon as supernatural. Dr. Rhine and other experimenters show that any normal person has the power to influence objects and events.
To quote “The Reach of the Mind”—“As a result of thousands of experimental trials, we found it to be a fact that the mind has a force that can act on matter. ... There must, therefore, be an energy convertible to physical action, a mental energy.”
The one great essential to the successful use of this mental energy seems to be intense interest or desire. The more keyed up a person is, the more eager for results, the more he can influence those results.
Dr. Rhine showed through many experiments that when the subject’s interest is distracted, when he lacks ability to concentrate his attention, his mental energy has little or no power over outside objects. It is only as he gives his entire attention to the object in mind, as he concentrates his every energy upon it, that he gets successful results.
Dr. Rhine’s experiments prove scientifically what we have always believed—that there is a Power over and above the merely physical power of the mind or body, that through intense concentration or desire we can link up with that Power, and that once we do, nothing is impossible to us.
It means, in short, that man is not at the mercy of blind chance or Fate, that he can control his own destiny. Science is at last proving what Religion has taught from the beginning—that God gave man dominion and that he has only to understand and use this dominion to become the Master of his Fate, the Captain of his Soul.
“Body and mind and Spirit, all combine To make the creature, human and Divine. Of this great Trinity, no part deny. Affirm, affirm, the great eternal I. Affirm the body, beautiful and whole, The earth-expression of immortal soul. Affirm the mind, the messenger of the hour, To speed between thee and the Source of Power. Affirm the Spirit, the eternal I— Of this great Trinity, no part deny.” Ella Wheeler Wilcox
THE GOD IN YOU
CHAPTER ONE THE GOD IN YOU
The Declaration of Independence starts with the preamble that all men are born free and equal.
But how many believe that? When one child is born in a Park Avenue home, with doctors and nurses and servants to attend to his slightest want, with tutors and colleges to educate him, with riches and influence to start him in his career, how can he be said to be born equal to the child of the Ghetto, who has difficulty getting enough air to breathe, to say nothing of food to eat, and whose waking hours are so taken up with the struggle for existence that he has no time to acquire much in the way of education!
Yet in that which counts most, these two are born equal, for they have equal access to the God in themselves, equal chance to give Him means of expression. More than that, the God in one is just as powerful as the God in the other, for both are part of that all-powerful God of the Universe who rules the world.
In effect, we are each of us individual cells in the great Mind of the universe—the God Mind. We can draw upon the Mind of the Universe in exactly the same way that any cell in our own body draws upon our brain for whatever it needs outside its immediate surroundings.
All men are born free and equal, just as all the cells in your body are equal. Some of these cells may seem to be more fortunately situated than others, being placed in fatty portions of the body where they are so surrounded with nourishment that they seem assured of everything they can need for their natural lives.
Others may be in hard-worked parts where they are continually having to draw upon the lymph around them, and through it upon the blood stream and the heart, and where it seems as though they cannot be sure of sustenance from one day to the next. Still others may be in little-used and apparently forgotten parts where they seem to have been left to dry up and starve, as in the scalp of the head when the hair falls out and the fatty tissue of the scalp dries, leaving the cells there to shrivel and die.
Yet despite their apparent differences in surroundings and opportunity, all these cells are equal, all can draw upon every element in the body for sustenance at need.
To see how it is done, let us take a single nerve cell in our own brain, and see how it works.
Look up the diagram of a typical nerve cell in any medical work, and what do you find? From one side of the cell, a long fibre extends which makes connection with some part of the skin, or some group of cells such as a muscle. This fibre is part of the nerve cell. It is the telephone line, carrying orders or stimuli from the cell to the muscle it controls, or from the sensory nerve in the skin to the cell in the brain. Thoughts, emotions, desires, all send impulses to the nerves controlling the muscles concerned, and provide the stimuli which set these muscles in action, thus transforming nervous energy into muscular energy.
So if you have a desire which requires the action of only a single muscle, what happens? Your desire takes the form of an impulse to the nerve cell controlling that muscle, the order travels along the cell-fibre to the musclc, which promptly acts in accord with the stimulus given it. And your desire is satisfied.
But suppose your desire requires the action of more than one muscle? Suppose it needs the united power of every muscle in the body? So far we have used only the long nerve fibre or telephone line connecting the nerve cell with the muscle it controls. But on the other side of each nerve cell are short fibres, apparently ending in space. And as long as the nerves are at rest, these fibres do lie in space.
But when you stir up the nerve cells, when you give them a job that is greater than the muscles at their command can manage, then these short fibres go into action. Then they bestir themselves to some purpose. They dig into the nerve cells near them. They wake these and stimulate them in turn to stir up those on the other sides of them until, if necessary, every cell in the brain is twitching, and every muscle in the body working to accomplish the job you demand.
That is what happens in your body if even a single cell in your brain desires something strongly enough, persistently enough, to hold to its purpose until it gets what it wants. And that is what happens in the God-body when you put the same persistence into your desires.
You see, you are a cell in the God-body of the Universe, just as every cell in you is a part of your body. When you work with your hands, your feet, your muscles, you are using only the muscles immediately connected with your brain cells. When you work with the money you have, the riches or friends or influence you control, you are using only the means immediately connected to your brain cell in the mind of God. And that is so infinitesimally small a part of the means and resources at the command of that Great God-mind.
It is just as though you tried to do all the work required of your body today by using only the tiniest muscle in your little finger, when by stirring up the surrounding nerve cells, you could just as well draw upon the power of the whole mind, or of the entire body if that were needed. It is as though one of your nerve cells undertook to do the work of the whole body, and tried, with the single muscle at its command, to do it!
You’d think that foolish, if one tiny nerve cell out of the billions in your brain, undertook any such gigantic job. You’d know it was hopeless . . . that no one cell, and no one muscle, could ever accomplish all that work. Yet you, as a single cell in the God-mind, have often attempted just as impossible jobs. When all you had to do to accomplish everything you desired was to stir into action the cells around you !
How can you do this? In the same way that any cell in your own brain does it. Pray! In other words, get an urgent, insistent desire. The first principle of success is DESIRE—knowing what you want[1q]. Desire is the planting of your seed. It needs cultivation, of course, but the first important step is the PLANTING. Desire stirs the nerve cells in your brain to use the muscles under their control to do the work required of them. Desire will set your nerve cell in the God-mind vibrating, using the muscle under its command and stirring into action all the nerve-celis around it until they, too, are working with you to bring about the thing you wish.
That is the reason it was said in the Vedas thousands of years ago that if any two people would unite their psychic forces, they could conquer the world! That is the reason Jesus told us—‘‘If two of you shall agree as touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done unto them. For when two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them, and I shall grant their request.”
When two or more nerve cells unite for a certain action, they get that action, even if to bring it about they have to draw upon every cell in the whole body for help I
This does not mean that anything is impossible to a single cell or a single person—merely that when two or more are united for a common purpose, the results are easier. But there is no good thing any man can ask, believing, that he cannot get.
In the first chapter of Genesis, it is written that God gave man dominion over the earth. And it is true. It is just as true as that any nerve cell in your whole body has dominion over your body. If you doubt it, let one nerve be sufficiently irritated, and see how quickly it puts every nerve in your body to work to remove that irritation.
One nerve cell in your body, with a strongly held purpose, can bring into action every cell in your body to accomplish that purpose. One nerve cell in the God-body (in other words, one man or woman) with a strongly held purpose, can bring into action every cell in the Universe, if these be necessary to the accomplishment of that purpose I
Does that mean anything to you? Does it mean anything to know that the words of prophets and seers are true, that the promises of the Scriptures can be depended upon, that there really is a Power in the Universe that responds to the urge of the lowliest man or woman just as readily as to the command of the highest?
The world is yours I It matters not whether you be prince or pauper, blue-blooded or red, white-skinned, black, yellow or brown. The God-body of the Universe makes no more distinction between cells than do you in responding to the impulses of the nerve-cells in your own body.
Rich or poor—it’s all one to you. Highly placed or low —one can cause you as much trouble, or give you as great satisfaction, as another. And the same is true of the God-body of the Universe. All men are created free and equal. All remain free and equal nerve cells in the God-mind of the Universe.
The only difference lies in our understanding of the power that is ours. How much understanding have you? And what are you doing to increase it? “Seek first understanding, and all things else shall be added unto you.” Easier to believe that now, isn’t it? With the right understanding, you could run the world. Can you think of anything more important than acquiring understanding?
What turned the complaining, discouraged, poverty-stricken and quite ordinary young Bonaparte into the greatest military genius of his age, “Man of Destiny” and master of most of Europe?
The Talisman of Napoleon, the Talisman of every great and successful man, the only Talisman that will stir the whole body of the Universe into action, is the same Talisman as that needed to put the entire physical body at the service of any one nerve cell—a purpose so strongly held that life or death or anything else seems of small consequence beside it! A purpose—and the persistent determination to hold to it until it is accomplished.
Love sometimes makes such a Talisman—the love that goes out to dare all and do all for the loved one. Greed oftentimes brings it into being—hence many of the great fortunes of today. The lust for power is a potent Talisman, that has animated men since time began. Greater still is the zeal of one who would convert the world. That Talisman has carried men through fire and flood, into every danger and over every obstacle. Look how Mohammed, a lowly camel driver, became the ruler of and prophet to millions.
Faith in charms, belief in luck, utter confidence in another’s leadership, all are Talismans of greater or lesser power.
But the greatest of all is belief in the God inside YOU! Belief in its power to draw to itself every element it needs for expression. Belief in a definite PURPOSE it came here to fulfill, and which can be fulfilled only through YOU!
Have you such a faith? If not, get it! For without such a faith, life is purposeless, meaningless. What is more, until you lay hold of that Talisman, life will never bring anything worth while to you 1
What was it won for Grant over his more brilliant opponents? The grim, dogged, persistent purpose to fight it out along those lines if it took all summer! What is it that has made England victor in so many of her wars, in spite of inept leadership and costly blunders? That same bull-dog determination, which holds on in spite of all reverses and discouragements, until its fight is won. What was it that wore out the unjust judge, in the parable that Jesus told?
“And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that man ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, ‘There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man;
“ ‘And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, “Avenge me on mine adversary.”
“ ‘And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, “Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.” ’
“And the Lord said, ‘Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?’ ”
If the nerve in a tooth keeps crying out that a cavity in that tooth needs attention, won’t you finally drop everything and seek out a dentist who can satisfy that nerve’s needs? And if any other nerve prays continuously for attention, won’t you do likewise with it?
Well, you are a nerve in the God-body. If you have an urgent need, and keep praying and insisting and demanding the remedy, don’t you suppose you will get it just as surely?
A definite purpose, held to in the face of every discouragement and failure, in spite of all obstacles and opposition, will win no matter what the odds. It is the one nerve cell working against the indifference, the inertia or even the active opposition of the entire group. If the cell is easily discouraged, it will fail. If it is willing to wait indefinitely, it will have to wait. But if it keeps stirring up the cells next to it, and stimulating them to stir those beyond, eventually the entire nerve system will go into action and bring about the result that single cell desires— even if it be only to rid itself of the constant irritation.1
You have seen young fellows determined to go to college. You have thought them foolish, in the face of the obstacles facing them. Yet when they persisted, you know how often those obstacles have one by one magically disappeared, until presently they found themselves with the fruition of their desires. A strongly held purpose, persisted in, believed in, is as sure to win in the end as the morrow’s sun is to rise. And earnest prayer is to the God-body what a throbbing nerve is to yours. Hold to it, insist upon it, and it is just as sure of a hearing. But remember:
“He that wavereth is like the wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed; let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.”
All are born free and equal. All may not start with the same amount of wealth or opportunity immediately available to them, but all can go to the Source of these and get just as much of them as is necessary to satisfy their desires.
We are surrounded by riches. We have available unlimited wealth. But we have to learn how to draw it to us.
Years ago, at Kimberley in South Africa, a poor Boer farmer tried to glean a living out of the rocky soil. His boys oftentimes picked up pieces of dirty looking crystal and used them as pebbles to throw at some wandering sheep. After years of fruitless effort, the farmer abandoned his attempts to make a living out of this rocky soil, and moved to a more fertile spot. Today, the farm he tried so hard to cultivate is the site of the Kimberley Diamond Mines, one of the richest spots on the face of the globe. And the bits of dirty crystal that his boys threw at the sheep turned out to be diamonds in the rough!
Most of us are like that poor Boer farmer. We strive and struggle, and frequently give up, because of ignorance of our powers, ignorance of the good things around us. We remain in poverty until along comes someone and shows that we were standing on a diamond mine all the time.
Russell Conwell[2] tells the story of a Pennsylvania farmer whose brother went to Canada and became an oil driller. Fired with the brother’s tales of sudden wealth, the farmer sold his land and went to Canada to make his fortune. The new owner, in looking over the farm, found that where the cattle came to drink from a little creek, a board had been put across the water to hold back a heavy scum which was washed down by the rains from the ground above.
He examined this scum, and thought it smelled like oil. So he had some experts come out and look the ground over. It proved to be one of the richest oil fields in the state of Pennsylvania.
What riches are you overlooking? What opportunities? “Opportunity,” says a famous writer, “is like oxygen. It is so plentiful that we fairly breathe it.” All that is necessary is a receptive mind, a willingness to try, and the persistence to see things through.
There is some one thing that YOU can do better than anyone else. There is some line of work in which you can excel—if you will just find that one thing and spend all your time and effort in learning to do it supremely well.
Don’t worry if it seems to be some humble thing that anyone ought to be able to do. In a magazine some time ago, there was the story of a Polish immigrant who could speak scarcely a word of English, who had no trade or training and had to take any sort of job that offered. He happened to get one in a nursery, digging up dirt for the flowers. He dug so well that soon he was attending to the planting of many of the commoner varieties of flowers.
Among these were the peonies. He loved those big peonies, gave them such careful attention that they thrived and grew more beautiful than ever. Soon his peonies began to attract attention, the demand for them grew, until he had to double and then quadruple the space devoted to them. Today he is half owner of that nursery.
Two artists opened an office together, doing any kind of work they could get. One noticed that wherever he happened to do cartoons for people, the results were so effective that they came back for more. So he made an especial study of cartoon drawing. Today his earnings are in the $25,000 class, while his fellow artist is still barely making ends meet as a jack of all trades.
A retail clerk found that she had a special gift for satisfying complaining customers. She liked to straighten out the snarls that others had caused, and she did it so well that she soon attracted the attention of her employers. Today she is head of the complaint department.
There is the switchboard operator with the pleasing voice, the reception clerk with the cheery smile, the salesman with the convincing manner, the secretary with the knack of saving the boss’ time, the drummer with the jolly manner. Every one of us has something. Find out what one thing you can do best, cultivate it and you can be the biggest man in that line in the world.
Success is where you are and within yourself. Don’t try to imitate what someone else is doing. Develop what YOU have. There is something in you that will enable you to reach the top in some one line. Put the spot light on your own characteristics, your own abilities. Find what you can do best, what people like you best for. Then cultivate that.
When the great Comstock Lode[3] was first discovered, a fortune was taken out of it. Then the ore petered out. The owners presently gave up and sold out to a new group. These men spent several hundred thousand dollars in a fruitless attempt to locate the rich lode, and they too were ready to give up. But someone thought to try a bore hole to the side of one of the entries, and struck an almost solid mass of ore so rich that nearly $300,000,000 was taken from it.
In the early days of the prairie farms, newcomers were frequently able to buy for a song the homesteads of the original settlers, because the latter had been able to find no water. They had dug wells, but had been unable to reach the streams beneath. Oftentimes, however, by digging only a few feet further, the newcomers found water in abundance. The first settlers had quit when success was almost within their grasp. The greatest success usually comes from one step beyond the point where defeat overtook you. ‘‘He who loses wealth, loses much,” says an old proverb. “He who loses a friend, loses more. But he who loses his courage, loses everything.”
Three things educators try to instil into children:
1st—Knowledge 2nd—Judgment 3rd—Persistence.
And the greatest of these is Persistence. Many a man has succeeded without education. Many even without good judgment. But none has ever got anywhere worth while without persistence. Without a strong desire, without that inner urge which pushes him on, over obstacles, through discouragements, to the goal of his heart’s desire.
“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence,” said Calvin Coolidge. “Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
Russell Conwell, the famous educator and lecturer who founded Temple University, gathered statistics some years ago on those who succeed, and his figures showed that of 4043 multimillionaires in this country at that time, only 69 had even a High School education. They lacked money, they lacked training, but they had the URGE to get somewhere, the persistence to keep trying . . . and they succeeded!
Compare that with the figures Conwell gathered on the sons of rich men. Only one in seventeen died wealthy! Lacking incentive, having no urge within them to get ahead, they not only failed to make their mark, but they lost what they had.
The first essential to success is a feeling of lack, a need, a desire for something you have not got. It is the powerlessness of the cripple or invalid that makes him long for strength, gives him the necessary persistence to work for it until he gets it. It is the poverty and misery of their existence that makes the children of the Ghetto long for wealth, and gives them the persistence and determination to work at anything until they get it.
You need that same urgent desire, that same determination and persistence if you are to get what you want from life. You need to realize that whatever it is you want of life, it is there for the taking. You need to know that you are a cell in the God-mind, and that through this God-mind you can put the whole Universe to work, if necessary, to bring about the accomplishment of your desire.
But don’t waste that vast power on trifles. Don’t be like the fable of the woodsman who, having worked long and hard for the wishing Fairy and accomplished the task she set him, was told that he might have in reward any three things he asked for. Being very hungry, he promptly asked for a good meal. That eaten, he noticed that the wind was blowing up cold, so he asked for a warm cloak. With his stomach full and a warm cloak about him, he felt sleepy, so he asked for a comfortable bed to lie upon.
And so, with every good thing of the world his for the asking, the next day found him with only a warm cloak to show for his labors. Most of us are like that. We put the mountain in labor, just to bring forth a mouse. We strive and strain, and draw upon all the powers that have been given us, to accomplish some trifling thing that leaves us just where we were before.
Demand much! Set a worth-while goal. Remember the old poem by Jessie B. Rittenhouse from “The Door of Dreams” published by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.
“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.”
Don’t you be foolish like that. Don’t bargain with Life for a penny. Ask for something worth putting the Universe to work for. Ask for it, demand it—then stick to that demand with persistence and determination until the whole God-mind HAS to bestir itself to give you what you want.
The purpose of Life from the very beginning has been dominion—dominion over every adverse circumstance. And through his part of dominion, his nerve-cell in the Mind of God and his ability through it to get whatever action he may persistently demand—man HAS dominion over everything.
There is a Spark of Divinity in YOU. What are you doing to fan it into flame? Are you giving it a chance to grow, to express itself, to become an all-consuming fire ? Are you giving it work to do? Are you making it seek out ever greater worlds to conquer? Or are you letting it slumber neglected, or perhaps even smothering it with doubt and fear?
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let him have DOMINION over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
Do you know what is the Unpardonable Sin in all of Nature? Read the following chapters, and you will see!
Affirmation:
“And every morning I will say, There’s something happy on the way. And God sends love to me. God is the light of my life, the Source of my knowledge and inspiration. God in the midst of me knows. He provides me with food for my thoughts, ideas for excellent service, clear perception, Divine intelligence.”
1. See parable of the importunate friend, page 154.
CHAPTER TWO THE GOAL OF LIFE
“Mind is the Master-power that moulds and makes, And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills, Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:— He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass: Environment is but his looking glass.” —JAMES ALLEN[4]
In the beginning God created the heaven and earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said . .
In the beginning was Mind, Energy, without form, without direction . . . like so much static electricity[2q]. Then came the Word, the mental image, to make all that power dynamic, to give it form and direction. What matters it the form it took first, so long as it had definite direction? It required an Intelligence to give it shape. That is the first great fact of the Scriptures. NOT that the heavens and earth were created, or light brought forth, but that any form presupposes a Directing Intelligence!
You cannot have dynamic electricity without a generator—an intelligence to conceive and direct it. No more can you have an earth or a flower, without an Intelligence to give them form from the static energy all about.
In the beginning, not merely was the earth without form and void, but the whole universe was the same way. Just as the interspaces of the universe are today. Everything was static—energy in flux. But “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light.”
St. John puts it—“In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God.” And what is the “Word” ? As often mentioned before, a word is not a mere sound issuing from the lips, or so many letters written by hand. A word is a mental concept, an idea, an image.
In the beginning was the mental image! Read over that first chapter of Genesis, and you will see that in everything God created, the “Word” came first—then the material form. The “Word” had to come first—you cannot build a house without first having a clear image of the house you are going to build. You cannot make anything, without first conceiving a mental image of the thing to be created. Not even God could do that!
So when God said—“Let the earth bring forth grass,” He had in mind a clear mental picture of what grass was like. As the Scriptures put it—“The Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herd of the field before it grew” First the “Word,” the mental image—then the creation.
It requires intelligence to form a mental concept. The animals cannot do it. They can recall images of things they have seen. They cannot conceive concepts from pure ideas. So, as stated above, creation pre-supposes a mental image, and a mental image means a directing Intelligence behind it.
That is the first conclusion that a reading of the Scriptures forces upon us. And the second is that like reproduces like.
Go over that first chapter again, and you will find that no less than six different times is the assertion repeated that “everything reproduces after its kind . . “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself. . . . Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind.”
Then God made man in His own image, after His likeness. Notice that! After telling us repeatedly that everything reproduced after its own kind, the Scriptures go on to say that God made man in His own image. That can mean only one thing—that man, too, is a God! For throughout all nature, hybrids are sterile. Nothing can breed out of its own kind. Different races, different strains of the same species, can interbreed, but all must be of the same kind.
So when God made man in His own image, and bade him be fruitful and multiply, He thereby showed that man was no hybrid, but of the true breed of God. And to prove it, he gave man dominion over the “fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” And He bade man replenish the earth, and subdue it and have dominion.
Simple instructions, and easily carried out—in part— but as for subduing the earth, and having dominion over it, mankind is still in the primer class. Yet if man is a God —and he is—then he can do it. And anything so worthwhile as that is worth all our effort to learn how to do.
For if we are gods and true sons of God—as the Scriptures frequently assure us—then we must possess all the properties of God. We must be creators. Then why don’t we create happier conditions ? Why don’t we do away with poverty and disease and all unhappiness?
Why? Because it takes understanding and faith to use our powers, and so few have the patience to work for them. Men will study for years to become doctors, or lawyers, or engineers. And they will start the practice of their professions in fear and trembling, realizing that it will be years before they will have gained enough practical knowledge from experience to be really competent in their work.
Yet they will read a book or two on psychology or some of the mental sciences, and if they cannot put the principles into practice next day, they give up in disgust and condemn the principles as tommyrot!
Of all fields of study, none offers such possibilities as the study of the inner powers of man. None offers such sure rewards to the persevering, sincere student. Yet there is no field so neglected by the average man. Nine men out of ten—yes, ninety-nine out of a hundred—merely drift through life. With generators inside them capable of producing power enough to accomplish any purpose, they get nowhere.
They use their generators, of course, but to what purpose? To sigh over some movie idol—or thrill over the exploits of some notorious racketeer—or wax indignant at the thieving of a fat city grafter. Vicarious emotions, all of them—yet because it is so much easier to enjoy one’s thrills vicariously, most people go through life experiencing few others.
They speed up their generators, but with no resultant good to themselves. Their experiences are all dream pictures. When they leave the movies, or put down their paper or book, they wake up! They never make the effort necessary to bring those thrills into their own lives.
Suppose the envelope of air that surrounds the globe were a great storage battery of electrical energy. Every thought, every fervent desire, every emotion, adds to the energy there. Every time you run your generator—with feelings of love or hate or fear or envy or hope or faith— you put additional energy into that storage battery.
But to draw energy out of this storage battery, you must have good conductors, good wires, the wires of a definite purpose, strongly held. And to keep the energy from dissipating requires the insulation of faith.
You cannot get much current from a storage battery by merely touching your wires to its posts, letting them slip on and off continuously. You have to twist them securely around the posts, fasten them there firmly with the screw cap, to get a constant current.
And you cannot use plain wires, or the current will run off into the first conductor that comes in contact with it. Your wires must be insulated, so the current will go directly from the battery to the appliance you wish it to run.
