Concentration: The Road To Success & How To Control Fate Through Suggestion E-Book
Henry Harrison Brown
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- Herausgeber: Musaicum Books
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
In 'Concentration: The Road To Success & How To Control Fate Through Suggestion', Henry Harrison Brown explores the power of concentration and suggestion in achieving success. The book delves into practical techniques that readers can apply to improve focus, manifest goals, and control their destiny. With a clear and concise writing style, Brown provides valuable insights that resonate with the late 19th-century self-help literature movement. Drawing on concepts of the New Thought philosophy, he emphasizes the importance of mental focus and positive thinking in shaping one's reality. Henry Harrison Brown, a prominent figure in the New Thought movement, was inspired to write this book based on his own experiences and observations of successful individuals. His background in metaphysical and spiritual teachings influenced the themes explored in 'Concentration', making it a valuable resource for those seeking personal development and spiritual growth. I highly recommend 'Concentration: The Road To Success & How To Control Fate Through Suggestion' to readers interested in harnessing the power of their minds to achieve success. Brown's insights offer practical guidance and inspiration for those looking to unlock their full potential and manifest their dreams.
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Concentration: The Road To Success & How To Control Fate Through Suggestion
Table of Contents
Concentration: The Road To Success
Preface
Syllabled by Silence, let me hear The still small voice that reached the prophets's ear.
- Whittier.
The thoughtful man needs no armor but this - concentration. * * * * Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, and in all management of human affairs.
- Emerson.
The deeper the mind penetrates, the clearer it becomes; the more it spreads itself out on the surface, the more it is confused. * * * * Read less, think more of what you have read. Act toward a difficult task as a brave general who leaves his foe no rest till he has overthrown him.
- Confucius.
To Those who during four years of Association Have made every day sunshining through the Affirmation: Heaven Is Mine, Now And Here!
Introduction. What Is Success?
The force of that mysterious, but irresistible power - Humanity's common and concentrated Thought.
- Senator Beveridge.
In what does success consist? Many persons desire to know how to be successful. How to win success. Before this question can be answered there must be an understanding as to what they mean by success, and what success stands for in this Book. I asked a correspondent what he meant by success, and his answer was, "I am in business, and I wish to make money from it!" Another wishes to win an office. Another to outstrip a rival. Another to succeed in her book. And here are two young ladies writing me, one wants to pass an examination in school and the other to learn to ride a bike. This is called success. But it is success without Principle. Success that leaves Life out of count. It is the success of some undertaking. This is not success. One may succeed in any and all these and similar undertakings and yet be a failure.
Success must be measured by a larger standard. Can we call these U. S. Senators under indictment for breaking the laws; these men of whom Graham Phillips is telling in his "Treason in the Senate;" can we call these millionaires who are under the indictment of public opinion, and these society women who are passing through operations from their doctors, Successes? Can we call the student broken in health, though he wins the valedictory, a success? Success in things may mean failure in Life.
"How may I succeed in Life?" is the only question that any conscientious metaphysician can answer. He will not answer the questions as to success in any enterprise. Those who attempt this are not metaphysicians but charlatans. The Greatest of Metaphysicians gave us the rule for SUCCESS, any other is a mere temporary advice or makeshift. Here is the only possible way to SUCCESS, that is written with capitals - "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you." A simple and scientific Law. It simply means. - Live by Principle and not by detail! It is as if the professor of electricity when asked, "How shall I make a battery?" should answer, "First study upon electricity till you learn its principle of action, then you will know how to make any apparatus."
Let us analyze this law as laid down by Jesus. First where am I to seek for the Kingdom? Answer, "The kingdom of God is within you!" What does kingdom mean. Kingdom stands for Power. Here then is the Law, Seek the Power that is within your SELF, then you will add to yourself things you desire. Success thus lies in the consciousness of Power to do whatever I wish to do. Success lies in the consciousness that one can meet any situation with satisfaction to himself. The manifestations of success are Health, Happiness and Supply.
He is a failure who finds that his body will not allow him to do what he wishes to do. He is a failure who must depend upon another to do that which is necessary to be done for the accomplishment of his plans. A successful man, though he may employ a thousand men, will feel that were it necessary he could carry out his purpose alone. The leaner is a failure. The successful man is filled with joy. The "kingdom of God" is "the kingdom of heaven," and heaven is happiness. Therefore any condition in life which does not bring happiness is failure, and happiness is the subjective cause of health. There can be neither health nor happiness till wants are supplied; therefore poverty is failure. I care not how honest, generous or noble a person is, if he wants any of the necessities of life, he is a failure. For the Power of God in the Soul when once found will see that Supply ever is at hand. He who has found this Power will find the ability to draw to himself Supply. But Supply does not mean anything to hoard or to lay by for a rainy day.
Therefore in Soul Culture the definition of Success is: - The consciousness of ability to meet every occasion in life and convert it into Health, Happiness and Supply. The way to this consciousness is first: - Believe it; then affirm it till you become it. This is the Affirmation of Success: I AM POWER TO BE AND TO DO THAT WHICH I WILL TO BE AND TO DO.
I. The "Why" Of The Book
Present power requires concentration on the moment and the thing to be done.
- Emerson.
I swear I see what is better than to tell the best, It is always to leave the best untold.
- Walt Whitman.
"Another book upon this subject?" the reader may exclaim. Yes; because concentration is the secret of human power in action. Waste is prevalent everywhere and the consequences are poverty, illness, unhappiness, and failure. It is a libel on nature to think that any person should be in any kind of want because there is not supply and ability in him to appropriate it. The unconscious perception of this fact has pushed man onward to present civilization. A more or less clear perception of the Law and the Way has given rise to many schools of Human Culture. Each generation has had its seers who have studied the operation of the Power within man and discovered the Law, so simple, that all may intellectually grasp it. But because the ordinary person goes no further than to have a mere general perception of Truth, this book is added to the great metaphysical stock and others will necessarily come after mine. I am but one among the million. This book is but one stone cast on the cairn that authors are building to the worship of the God of Success.
Concentration is not something to be learned as one learns mathematics. It is a mental habit which is to be acquired just as the habit of solving problems in geometry is to be acquired by practice. Concentration is that mental attitude attained by practice, that characterizes the book-keeper and the mechanic, who know not that others are about, and who do their work almost automatically and unconsciously.
Concentration is that mental state, acquired only by practice, which enables the actor to forget self in the part he is playing, or the author to forget self in the thought he is writing. Only practice and more practice, can produce it. For this reason text-book after textbook will be needed, and the thought must be reiterated, "line upon line," and enforced example by example, till the habit of concentration is formed.
Because of this I feel it a duty to give my testimony and to help those still struggling as once was I. But I have another reason. My magazine and books have caused a large clientele to look to me for assistance along the lines of soul unfoldment; they turn to me with questions, and I must answer. From this feeling and this need, this book is born. It has not been of predetermined growth. It arises from my articles in magazine, from my lessons in class, from letters and conversations. Because I feel these persons have made inquiries that others are asking; these others will find what so many have already found in my thought; so I let the matter stand just as first given, knowing that the sometime repetition of the same thought in a little different way, will through suggestion strengthen the idea. I simply talk to you, my reader, just as I should in writing yon a letter, or in answering your questions, were you in my room. In fact much of the thought of the book comes from my class conversation. I trust you will feel the inspiration from which the instruction sprung.
I wish most in these first pages to emphasize the fact that it is a mental habit you are to cultivate. I am not giving you a treatise for merely intellectual comprehension. It is a book of conduct, rather. Any book can help you only in so far as you put what you are told into practice. As soon as you grasp an idea, lay down the book and think upon it and begin, then and there, to practice what you have learned. Repeat it over and over as an Affirmation. Tell yourself that you live that. Practice this till you unconsciously, through habit, think in that line. It will ultimately become a habit for you thus to think and you will live from that Affirmation. This alone is Concentration.
When I was a boy I was an omnivorous reader; read every book no matter of what kind I could obtain, from Sunday School, library, or neighbor. I thus created a habit of reading anywhere and of paying no attention to whatever was about me. Often has mother shaken me with the words, "Henry, where is that armful of wood you promised to get me?" Or, "Henry, when will you get that pail of water?" "Why mother," I would reply, "I never heard you call me!" "My son," she would say, "I have spoken several times, and you have answered me, 'yes, Mother, right away!' and now I can wait no longer." But I had not heard her. So at least I thought then. Now I know that my hearing was then perfect, but that I paid no attention to what I heard. I did not let the sound then cause me to think. I was deaf because I did not use my power to convert sound to thought. The old saying is true; "Deaf people hear when they wish to!"
How many of my readers have this habit of abstraction or of absent mindedness? And yet they are the very ones who tell me they "cannot concentrate." Please change this expression to this form, and it is true: "I do not concentrate upon that which I desire! I let myself drift through habit!" Study this last sentence till you get the meaning. It will help to develop the power of conscious concentration.
All I am trying to do in these conversations is, to bring you to consciously do that which you are doing unconsciously and automatically every day. I wish you to rise from habit formed through neglect or necessity, to a habit formed because you desire and choose it. In the first place you are a slave of, and in the last place you are the Master of, habit.
Note - Since Concentration is only paying attention to right thoughts, I have prefaced, each section with extracts from best literature, and recommend that the reader memorize them, as they are Power-thoughts and will, when meditated upon, lead to Success.
II. Concentration Is Natural
If the first rule is to obey your native bias, to accept the work for which you were inwardly formed, - the second rule is concentration, which doubles its force.
- Emerson in "Greatness"
The power of concentration is one of the most valuable of intellectual attainments.
- Horace Mann.
Judging from letters and questions of pupils, no part of the Mental Science causes so much difficulty as the demand that there be Concentration. I propose to take from this demand all that is difficult, and remove all obstructions from the mind so that there will be a clear understanding of what is meant by "Concentration," and what by the phrase so much in use, - " In the Silence!"
There is no break in the methods of nature. Truth is identical whether uttered by ancient or modern teacher, by eastern priest or modern Mental Scientist. He who finds Truth, finds it by Nature's one method. There are no patent rights upon any of her secrets, and no corners upon any method of arriving at the perception of Truth.
The cave man found it just as Moses did, and Moses just as Socrates, and Socrates as Jesus, and A. J. Davis as Jesus, and Mrs. Eddy as Davis, and Henry Harrison Brown as they did. Therefore, unless we are to admit the claim of special revelation and arbitrary selection on the part of a Creator, we are to analyse our own mental action, and from the way we have come to Truth, realize that all in like manner come. From the study of our own unfoldment, we are to deduce ways for still more extended progress, just as we have by study of nature's methods in other lines of manifestation, learned to assist her in her unfoldment.
As man, by interrogating nature has learned to become a factor in the evolution of the material world, as he has, by the same process learned to be a factor in his own evolution, mentally, artistically, esthetically; so by the study of our mental conditions we are to learn to be a conscious factor in the evolution of a control over ourselves.
The child and the savant learn by the same means. The slave and the king develop by the same process. The workman and the poet win success by obedience to the same law. The victor and the vanquished are results of the one instrument. Nature is no respector of persons. All the old conception of any special revelation; of any peculiar method; of any newly invented process; of any specially prepared series of directions; of any collections of teachings, or of any prepared formulas, being of value, must pass away. You are to realize that in you abides the same power; in you lies latent, the same intelligence; in you awaits the same germ, that all other men possess, to be brought into unfoldment by the same methods. You are to declare, - "What man has done I can do! When I know how others achieve I also can achieve. When I have learned the Law, I can use it! When I find the Way I can walk in it. When I see the Light I can follow it. When I know the Truth I can demonstrate it."
So long have the old ideas held sway that it is important that you see that all of the old growths of error, of self depreciation, of beliefs in the supernatural and in the special are rooted out of your mind. Too many are trying to come into the New Thought and hold on to the old thought at the same time. For such, Jesus spoke, when he admonished Us not to put new wine in old bottles. New perceptions of truth will not fit old statements, and new perceptions must not be limited to old methods. Truth is never old and her methods of revelation, the processes of awakening to the perception of Truth, are ever the same. Do not confound human perception of Truth with Truth itself, nor fix it at the ancient limitation. Lowell tells us that: -
God sends his teachers unto every age, To every clime, and every race of men, With revelations fitted to their growth And shape of mind, nor gives realm of Truth Into the selfish rule of one sole race.
Do not make one and the same, the thing and the maker, the seer and the perception. The methods of seership are always the same; the methods of applying the truth perceived to the objective life are as various as are organizations and the lives of the seers. No one can either perceive Truth or live it for you; therefore while you perceive Truth by the absolute law of Mind, you will apply Truth by the special law of your own individuality. Thus Truth common to all ages and all men is so differently stated, and so differently applied that there are thousands of sects and schools. But under all these, lies the one Substance named God, Brahm, Allah, Joss, Force, Mind, Energy, Christ, Spirit, etc, etc. And no matter what the rite, form, ceremony, formula, method, law, rule, or regulation proposed or imposed, all these have their base in the same natural phenomena. Therefore no matter what claim is made for any system you are to understand that no system ever was, or ever can be, made that will embody all possible methods of attaining any desired unfoldment. No system can be made that will exhaust the possibilities of infinite Principle. Systems, forms, and rules arise in the observance of details. When you rise to Principles you will make your own rules or have none.
Reliance upon Principle and reliance upon rule, make the difference between a master and a slave; between a leaner and one self-controlled. To rest upon forms, formulas, rites and rules is the custom of church, state and public opinion. To rest upon Principle is the demonstration of - Individuality.
A clear conception of this point is necessary because so many teachers, leaders and founders, are springing up, claiming to speak with authority, or to have devised, or found, some plan by which one may attain unfoldment, success, health, or happiness by some new and original road. Know this: all such claims are based upon some merely individual perceptions of the one and the same law which every person has obeyed who ever attained success. There is but one way, because Life, Truth, Principle, and Law are unchangeable. The Spirit of Truth through Jesus said - "1 am the way!" So It says through every Human Soul. "I am the way!" says Life. "I am the way!" said Nature to the scientist, and seeking out her way, it is now his way. In New Thought we only interrogate Nature; seek her way! When we find her way we shall have the only way. And since all Truth is simple; since every discovery man has made of Nature's way is simple; we are to infer that when we find the way to health, success and happiness it will be so simple that we shall be surprised that we did not always know it.
I admonish you at the beginning of any study, to put aside all systems that have anything strange, difficult, mysterious, occult, or supernatural; anything hard to understand, or peculiar to do. They are not Nature's way and will never be yours. Mistrust everything you find difficult to understand. Only so far as any system conforms to your own simple life, does it have any value to you. When you are inclined to take up any method of self-culture, ask, "Is this Nature's simple way? Have all men in all ages found success through obedience to this Principle? If so, I will adopt it."
Again, I advise you to refuse to deal with any teacher, or system, that proposes to do all for you; to make it easy for you. There are no easy, no royal roads. Though the New Jerusalem "lieth four square with gates on each side;" there are no chariots on either side to carry you in. You must get in by your own unaided efforts.
"Where did you come from, Topsy?" "I growed!" Each person must grow into any condition he desires. Teachers may do what the gardener does - make conditions for growth. This book and any good book or teacher, can make conditions for you to grow, by teaching you how mankind has ever grown.
I would that you bring very closely to yourself this thought - "All men are created equal!" In this consciousness concentrate your forces in the thought. - "What man has done, I can do! What men know, I can know. When I know what they know, I can do as they do!" This is the only possible rational, self-respecting mental attitude. It is the only one under which I wish to claim you as a pupil or as friend. In this mental attitude we shall win. In any other we shall fail.
In other words I have been during all this lesson, advising you to concentrate upon FAITH IN YOURSELF. This is the keynote to the Arch of Character and its presence or absence constitutes success or failure.
The key to success in the line of all mental and spiritual achievement, is CONTROL OF THE ATTENTION. The ability to concentrate and hold the attention upon any given point at will, and resist all diverting tendencies and desires, is an absolute necessity to high attainment and rapid progress. Happily this is an art that all may acquire by resolution and persevering effort. The very practice itself is a wholesome and efficient mental discipline. - Dr. J. H. Dewey in "The Way, the Truth and the Life"
III. Paying Attention
Careful attention to one thing often proves superior to genius and art.
- Cicero.
Let us labor for an inward stillness, An inward stillness and an inward healing.
- Longfellow.
Not in the clamor of the crowded street, Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, But in ourselves, are triumphs and defeat.
- Longfellow.
In the study of metaphysics, the awful bugbear of "The Silence" has been let loose upon you. As you have been thinking of what I have written and paid no attention to anything else, you have been "In the Silence!" As you have "paid attention" to the thought of these pages, you have been "concentrating," and the difficult task you have feared is accomplished; the condition you thought so hard to reach, is gained.. How? By not thinking of it! By forgetting you have clone that which you wished to do. Never yet did a person concentrate while thinking, "I am going to concentrate:" or, "I wish I could concentrate!" or, "0, how hard it is to concentrate!" As long as you think of what you wish to do, you will never do it. As soon as you forget your wish to do, in the doing, the thing is done. It is this continual thought of concentration, that troubles so many of my students, readers, and correspondents. "I have been a New Thought student for years and cannot concentrate," is a frequent expression. But there is, nevertheless, in the expression, the concentration sought. It shows that the person has concentrated, not upon the thought desired, but upon the wish to concentrate. This is concentration.
I have said that we must win by that method by which mankind has ever won: That there is but one method. Study the life of any successful person in any age and along any chosen line; seek one among your friends or acquaintances; what is the dominant mental quality that gave him success? Be he gambler or poet, find the trait which gave him power. Find among your friends those who have failed and see what thought caused their failure.
Lady Macbeth said to her husband:
But screw your courage to the sticking place and we shall not fail!
We have the proverb - "Too many irons in the fire!"
This is diffusion.
"One thing at a time, and that done well Is as good a rule as I can tell!" is an admonition I learned as a lad. Success is his who concentrates; failure lies in diffusion. "Concentration is power; diffusion is weakness," says Emerson. Study persons of strong character among your friends. They are not the fickle ones, not those who jump from topic to topic in conversation. They are those who can tell a coherent story, and who are not easily thrown off their poise.
Men who succeed are those who attend to their business, that is: - pay attention to business. The rule for success in every department of life, be it desire for health, happiness, success, or prosperity is - MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. First, have a business. Then, mind it. That is, put your mind into your business. Think of your business. Keep your thoughts upon your business. MIND - PAY ATTENTION TO, which is merely saying, "Concentrate upon what you are doing." Men whose minds are off wool gathering when they should be attending to business, are men who fail. Men whose minds are full of fears, anxieties and doubts, fail. Minds, uncontrolled, are like horses uncontrolled; neither arrive at any desired end. They fly the track, they put no eye on the goal. Winners see the goal; keep that end in view all the time.
Concentration is an ever-present element in all human success and if you wish to succeed in applying the Affirmations of "Soul Culture," you must do as all successful persons have done, i. e., concentrate upon them. In the simplest and strongest terms, make these Affirmations your business, and mind your business. M. Y. 0. B., (mind your own business) must be your watchword of success. These letters are of value equal to those to which men attach so much value, those granted by college or king. Following the name of every successful person, I see the invisible M. Y. 0. B., which is God's insignia of nobility - "A successful man!"
New Thought is but bringing prominently and simply into view, the good old admonition, "Have something to do and do it." Jesus gave the same when he said, "Not every one who saith to me 'Lord! Lord!' But he that doeth the will of my Father!" No doing without thought, and that thought is concentrated thought. Powder flashed in the pan never sends a ball to any mark. Powder concentrated by the chamber of the cannon does the work; tons can only destroy recklessly without the chamber.
The lesson - Powder in pan has the same power as that in cannon. So with men - All have equal power, "All men are created equal," in life, power and possibilities of Spirit. Some concentrate and win; others scatter and lose. Some make a lot of noise, and go off with a whiz, like a Chinese pin-wheel; others work silently like the fuse of the sappers and miners, till the moment of action, then you hear them. Do you take this all in ? You do not as long as you hold any person or condition or circumstance to blame for your success or failure. As long as you thus hold circumstances responsible, you will never cure life's ills. You have as much life, as much power, and as good conditions as any other person. We are not all alike in desires, tendencies, or loves; but for us, as we are, the whole universe is ours. We have only to use the power we are. Circumstances are opportunities through which we are to express the power we are. Emerson says: "The great heart will no more complain of the obstructions that make success hard, than of the iron walls of the gun which hinder the shot from scattering."
From this, understand that Concentration is the universal Law governing the manifestations of Power in any line. In what is known as physics, concentration is the secret of power. Mechanics lies in power to concentrate the stream, wind, lightning and thus make it possible to bring it under direction and control. Diffused power cannot be directed or controlled and is therefore subject only to the laws of the Absolute and the uses that it has in the Universal Mind. Winds that blow without any human direction, streams that flow without being controlled in some channel, have use in the economy of Nature, but are not directly of use to man.
As soon as man begins to concentrate, not only these invisible forces, but also to concentrate the visible like fusing or forging the minerals, he increases their power.
Concentration is the secret of directed power, wherever man has made it available. Emerson tells us that Napoleon's success lay in concentration, his only rule.
He says: - "On any point of resistance he concentrated squadron after squadron in overwhelming numbers until it was swept out of existence."
When man shall learn to still more concentrate power he will master aerial navigation. Storage batteries and small dynamos and small engines are opening the way.
Therefore, when you are learning concentration, you are learning to use Power, in the same manner as man has learned to use those powers he has harnessed to his machinery.
Mental concentration is the application of the one method through which all nature applies her forces to any particular end.
