Health & Power Through Creation E-Book

Paul Ellsworth

• Herausgeber: Andura Publishing
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Experience the life-changing power of Paul Ellsworth with this unforgettable book.

Das E-Book wird angeboten von und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:

Leseprobe

Health & Power Through Creation

Paul Ellsworth

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

OH, creature of a thousand moods! Com­plex of passions and desires, of hopes and fears and of vague, tormenting yearnings! Where amidst all that multiplicity of thoughts and feelings that surge through your mind are you?

Men live on the outside of their bodies, like barnacles. They explore themselves with stetho­scopes and clinical thermometers and stomach tubes, with tracts and sermons and political platforms. They grope this way and that, searching for — what? For success? And how many find it? Is there a way which all may tread into this wonder land of the soul, and which, treading, perchance they may find all the rest — success, happiness, mastery, fruition?

The Way exists. You were created for suc­cess; for power and perfection of mind and body; for mastery over every circumstance of the outer life; for abundance of all good things. Do you doubt it? You do not. In your innermost consciousness you have always known that you were of the royal household and that all that you thought or did was unworthy of your real nature, of the power and mastery to which you were born. You have hitherto sojourned in the far country of sensual delusions, but even now you are turning your face back toward your Father’s house. The Way lies before you.

Chapter 1 – The Secret of Mastery

YOU were created for success. 1 do not care whether in the past you have achieved a fair measure of health and wealth and contentment, or whether you have been the most abject failure in all your undertakings. You have at this moment within you, either active or latent, every faculty and every re­source needed for the biggest, most satisfying success you can imagine.

The usual conception seems to be that God, or First Cause, or whatever you prefer to call the originating power and wisdom, created two classes of human beings: thoroughbreds, who were born to win all that they desired; and mongrels, who were predoomed to failure. This theory is just as reasonable as one which would account for the apparent inefficiency of a new locomotive by assuming that it had been made purposely defective and wasn’t intended to “work.” Instead of looking at it in this way, the master mechanic would probably examine the engine and the engineer, with a view to find­ing whether the machinery needed readjusting or whether the man in charge was not doing his work properly. Suppose that this new engine was not properly fired, for instance; sup­pose that the wrong kind of coal was used, or that ashes and clinkers were allowed gradually to fill the fire-box. Evidently the engine would not do its work well and would be a “failure” among engines; but all the time it would have in its very mechanism the elements of success and power.

You were created for success. You were turned out by a master-builder, and within you is every faculty and every form of ability which you can possibly need for the work you were created to do. If you have heretofore considered your­self inefficient or lacking in any way whatever, I am going to ask you to suspend judgment on yourself until you have studied the subject of human adjustment, the science of bringing into activity the latent powers of man, and the possibility of finding and correcting mental and emotional short circuits.

This book is a systematic presentation of these facts, and of the principles and methods which lie back of all healing and all creative success, whether on the physical or on the men­tal plane. It outlines a definite and effective system of bringing into activity and coordinat­ing all the powers of mind and body, many of which have lain dormant so long that they have been forgotten. There is nothing extravagant in claiming that this awakening can be effected: all force is subject to law, and if one man does things which you cannot do, it is because he has blundered or has come by study upon laws which you have missed.

Before we go farther, however, we must clear away a few misconceptions which would pre­vent your getting at the very heart of this book, which is what you must do before you can apply its teachings. One of the first of these is the old belief in the possibility of one man’s learn­ing another’s lessons for him. Now, if you and I are to be of any benefit to each other, it must be upon the basis of each of us doing his or her own work. I can bring to your attention some very remarkable facts, together with methods, direct and specific, of applying these facts to your life. But in this matter of appli­cation I cannot help you, except to point out in a measure how you may best help yourself. This implies personal effort, but any system of achievement founded on anything else is quackery.

Another possible cause of misunderstanding between us is that old source of argument, re­ligion. I wonder what associations you have with this word. Perhaps they are so disagree­able that any mention of it will anger you. The common idea of religion is of a sort of anti­toxin, taken in this life to protect us against_ possible evil in the next. This idea has never satisfied thoughtful minds, and people of this type usually either have turned away from the religious concept entirely or have modified it in various ways. Some sort of a religion every man must have, if it be nothing better than a religion of agnosticism or general disbelief. Every successful man has a religion, of whose articles of faith he is in no doubt, although he may never have formally recognized this creed in his life. This religion of success will be built up of various laws and tendencies which he has recognized as making for efficiency and satis­faction.

I think that a very good test to which a man’s religion can be put is this: To what extent can it be taken into every activity of his life? Is it practical; that is, does it apply to life or just to an indefinite future existence when work will have been done away with? Does it make its follower a better mechanic, or a better mer­chant, or a better school-teacher, or a better farmer than he would have been without it? Is it a system of living which can be followed seven days in the week and twenty-four hours in the day, or does it have to be put into a drawer while its professor goes to his daily work?

Practically, religion can go a little deeper than this: if it touches the concrete and the visible on the outer side, it will also be found to touch on the inner certain sources of energy and wisdom which, in the hurry and worry of life, have long been overlooked. And so doing, it will be found to supply not only a practical creed for living and working, but it will have silently brought with it from this inner and invisible plane that element of mastery and success for which men have vainly sought without. Accept this as a supposition now, if you like. I will show you before long how to prove it. And this religion of living and working comes in the end to be the modern doctrine of efficiency, reduced to its simplest terms and applied to every interest and activity of life.

While we are considering the matter of the misuse of some of the necessary words related to living, I want to give you a new definition of sin:

Sin is an unscientific and wasteful method of striving for a desirable end.

Sin does not lie in the thing sought, which, when fully understood, is found invariably to be creative expression. It does lie in the man­ner of seeking. And so the secret of freeing the life from sin, which is the friction and lost mo­tion of living, is to learn what is really worth doing and then to add to this the knowledge of just how to do it most effectively. “Don’t” is the poorest text in the world, whether your sermon is for a child or a man. The people who merely refrain from doing evil without striving to accomplish any positive good are not really living. They are dreaming about life, and, until they are awakened, they are neither good nor bad. A live and active sinner will learn eventually that fire is hot by putting his hand into it; and he is then on the way to learn the legitimate use of fire.

It is absolutely necessary for man to create. The boy who takes the alarm clock apart is learning the secrets of construction; and if he has clocks enough and time enough, sometime he will be able to put them together again. Many men never get beyond the alarm clock stage; they never outgrow the destructive tend­ency, which is merely creative power used in an inverted way. And the only practical fashion of “converting” these social misfits is to show them how to create positively instead of negatively. You can’t inhibit energy any more than you can suppress dynamite.

You were created for success. If you are a drunkard, you can learn how to master appe­tite, how to regenerate your poisoned tissues and to turn into constructive channels the energy which has gone into destroying your body. Perhaps your trouble has been that you were hampered by what other people called “laziness,” but what you knew to be an actual lack of energy. Well, there is the assurance of success for you, too, if you will take hold of the methods I will show you, and will do, rather than just think about doing. There is no lack of energy in the universe, and it is possible for you to come into such abiding harmony with this infinite energy that you will never lack for power. No man is “lazy” or “dissipated” when he comes really to know himself.

Connected with this matter of laziness is the charge often brought against any attempt to utilize the deeper forces of mind.

“It is a lazy man’s way of trying to get out of work,” says the conservative.

Perhaps so. In the same way, the engineer is too lazy to lift the boiler, so he builds a crane to lift it for him. The people in the office building are too lazy to climb twenty or thirty flights of stairs, so the owner of the building provides, an elevator for them. Anything which replaces unproductive labor with productive is worth while, both for the individual and for the race. If, by speeding up the mental machinery and eliminating friction and lost motion, a man can learn to do in a given time twice as much work as he has been doing and to do it better, he can afford to ignore the charge of laziness. j

One other element of possible misunder­standing must be eliminated. Before we have advanced very far into the chapters which fol­low, it will become apparent that certain habits of thought and action must be brought under control and forced to take their proper place in the life, instead of being allowed to choose their own modes of expression. Some of my readers, I fear, will protest against this very practical application of the theory of self-mas­tery as an unnecessary hardship. Before a man is ready for success, however, he must come to realize that many forms of expression have habitually received vastly more energy than they were entitled to, and that they have never returned, in results and genuine satisfaction, anything for this energy they have consumed. To be really satisfying, an activity must produce worth while results. Energy which is consumed in an emotional outburst is worse than wasted, for it tends to break down the integrity and harmony of the entire organism.

It will be well to notice, in connection with this matter of self-control, that the most prac­tical type of man to be found in modern life has arrived at this same conclusion, by obvi­ously practical and “hard-headed” methods of reasoning. The modern successful business man, he of the best type, is notably clean living and self-mastered. At the head of pretty much any big and successful enterprise you will find men of this sort: bright eyed, clean blooded, clean minded men, who live simply and work hard and effectually. There has been a good deal of abuse heaped upon these master-workers, for human nature is prone to place the blame for its own failures upon the backs of those who have succeeded; but in truth such a man is nearer the Kingdom than many a morbid fanatic who cloaks his self-indulgence under the vari­ous moth-eaten cloaks of conventionality and custom. When the “big business man” learns to see the real significance of his work and to understand his relation to that Divine Mind which is working through every honest work­man throughout the universe, he will be a mighty factor in bringing the Kingdom of God, which is the Kingdom of Harmony with a theological label hitched to it, on earth. He has learned to work effectively, and to him shall be added that which he lacks: a broad pity for the weak and inefficient and a supreme hum­bleness before that Creative Presence of which he is but a manifestation.

In concluding this chapter, I want to offer a few suggestions which may help the reader to get the most out of it:

First, the logic of what I have to say is not intended to be argument-proof. There is a class of people who would rather sit around a well-filled table and argue about the satisfying possibilities of food than put the matter to the test by eating. A skilful debater can prove anything and then can jump the fence and prove that his first truth was a lie. The truth of all I have to say is simple enough to be grasped by anyone who will use it rather than argue about it; and this test will decide many a mat­ter which argument would leave unsettled.

Second, this book is not religious in the sense of being theological; but it discusses from the practical side some subjects which usually are considered solely from a religious point of view.

Third, the chapter following this will deal with principles which must be assimilated as a foundation for what is to follow. The other ten chapters consist of methods of application, and you who read must do the applying. No one else can do it for you. Every method has been repeatedly tested and will work if you work it. The royal road to success is not a toboggan, down which you can slide to your goal. It is simply a way of attainment, insuring success through the directness and scientificness of its methods.

Fourth and finally, if there is anything in my statements which you don’t feel like accept­ing, don’t. But don’t fight or argue: simply ignore that which does not appeal to you, and go to work at the rest. This is good philosophy. Lies don’t need to be fought: they will die of themselves; and the truth can’t be done away with, no matter how hard you try to bury it with your protests.

So choose that which you can assimilate, and perhaps the time will come when you will find the rest not quite so absurd. Be earnest and honest. Remember that you were created for success and that your part in demonstrating this great fact is to use the light that comes to you “right up to the handle.”

Chapter 2 – The Divine Mind

BY the time you have reached this chapter, there is one protest you will make if you are going to make it at all:

“The world is full of imperfect people. The virtuous ones are often invalids, and the healthy ones paupers. Do you belong to the school that tries to cure an evil by denying it or ignoring it?”

No, imperfection and limitation are real enough. They exist; but — they need not con­tinue in the life of any individual after that individual has learned the truth about himself. Every human being is potentially perfect. Lack and the appearance of imperfection are the re­sults of one or more of three elements: First, misdirected energy; second, dormant life and faculties; third, belief in a set of superstitions which may be called “race lies.”

The first and the second of these elements of failure will be considered later. Let us deter­mine now how a man’s belief in a lie can affect him. Does his belief change the truth? It does, in relation to his life. The fact is that a man brings undesirable results into his life by an inverse use of the very power which, rightly used, would insure his happiness and success. He is directing forces which he does not under­stand; often he uses them without even recognizing them, and the results which follow this ignorant use seem to him to come from some malicious power outside of himself.

Before we can understand the creative power of thought, however, we must get back to the origin of things and discover how man comes to be endowed with this wonder-working faculty. The answer to this problem lies in the nature of man himself:  Man is the terminal and expression of an inner and unseen life. Back of and within the individual lies a Divine Mind, and it is the power of this Divine Mind upon which man draws, whether he does so unconscious of its existence, or whether he has learned the secret of his own nature and is able to work certainly and scientifically. Assured and abounding success is the result of recognizing this law of man’s constitution and of living in harmony with it in every activity.

Nature is another expression of this Divine Mind. Nature is not the original creative principle any more than is man. Nature’s work is not always perfect, by any means. The action of flood, pestilence, and tornado is an expression of her destructive tendency, and if this were not at times overruled by the Divine Life, which is always constructive and beneficent, the world would become a place of chaos.

If man is an expression of this Divine Life, why is he so limited in his power of attaining his wishes? The limitation lies in his recogni­tion of his own nature. Here again his thought is creative, and to the extent to which he rec­ognizes his identity with the power back of all life and substance, he learns to manifest power, direct and unhampered.

Let me put this into a more compact form:

Man is a manifestation of a Divine Life. He is limited by his recognition of his true nature, for always and by the very law of his being his thought has creative power. The water in the stream is in its attributes exactly like that in the spring from which it took its source.

After you have mastered this secret, you will be able to see in the life about you plenty of illustrations of its workings. For instance, consider the matter of genius: A ‘‘genius” is a man who in whatever line he expresses himself does mightier works than his fellows. If he is a painter, he is a master-painter, and there is an element of spontaneity in his work which can never be added by mere desire or determi­nation. He appears to work not from himself, but from some inner spring of power and mas­tery. Something greater than himself finds expression through him, and in his humble moments he knows that he is but the channel through which flows a power infinitely greater than anything he recognizes in his little outer mind.