The Ancient Secrets to Personal Success, Personal Power and Freedom E-Book

Edward Beals

• Herausgeber: Mike Thomas
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Finally The New Revised Edition is Available!

 

Leseprobe

The Ancient Secrets to Personal Success, Personal Power and Freedom

Epigraph

“Look for the warrior and let him fight in thee. Take his orders for battle and obey them. * * * he is thyself, yet infinitely wiser and stronger than thyself. Look for him, else in the fever and hurry of the fight thou mayest pass him; and he will not know thee unless thou knowest him. * * * When once he has entered thee and become thy warrior, he will never utterly desert thee,…”

—Light on the Path.

Foreword

This book is devoted to the subject of the development, cultivation and manifestation of Personal Power— Personal Power in all its phases, aspects and modes of manifestation and expression. “Personal Power,” as understood and taught in this book, may be defined as: “The ability or strength possessed by the human individual, by which he does, or may, accomplish desired results in an efficient manner, along the lines of physical, mental, and spiritual effort and endeavor.”

This book is not written with the purpose of reforming the world, nor of conducting a propaganda for the advancement of some particular creed, belief, body of teaching or doctrine; nor is it written on behalf of any particular organization, cult, society, or school interested in enlarging its membership, or in spreading its doctrines. Instead, it is written for YOU—YOU are the individual in whom we are interested, and for whom this instruction is intended.

You have been attracted to this book, and it to you, by reason of certain ever-operative though little-known laws of life and being. You have long awaited the coming of this book; you are now ready to absorb its teachings; “your own has come to you” after your period of watching and waiting; and you will recognize it as your own, by reason of a certain intuitive perception which comes to those who are ready to receive that which it contains. You have demanded this book: here it is.

This book is different in many respects from anything that you ever have read. A careful and earnest study of the truths presented in it will work a marked change in you, though you may not fully realize it at this time. You will never be exactly the same after its reading: it will have left its indelible impress upon you.

You may come to think that you have put it aside, and that you have no further interest in its teachings. But you will find that certain memories of the statements contained in it will abide with you, and that echoes of its teachings will ring in the ears of your mind. In the words of Whitman, its “words will itch in your ears till you understand them.” Its basic truths, and the suggestions as to their application, will stick in your mind as the burr sticks in the fleece of the sheep which has acquired it in its wanderings.

You can no more escape from the influence of the truths presented in its pages than you can run away from your own shadow. At every turn and cross-roads of the path of experience hereafter, you will find yourself almost unconsciously applying the principles of this instruction, and employing some of the methods taught in it. You are hereby warned that such will be the case: if you are not willing to experience such results, now is your time to put away the book.

If, however, you decide to proceed with the reading and study of this book, we have several suggestions to make to you. You need not expect to master this instruction at the first reading.

There is much solid food contained in it—many things requiring careful mental mastication, digestion, and assimilation. You will need to read the book several times, from start to finish, with intervals between each reading. Yet the instruction is quite simple, and at each reading you will acquire many important facts, principles, and methods.

The proper way in which to read this book for the purpose of study—in which to extract from its pages that which is condensed in them—is to start by reading it carefully, from beginning to end, but without trying to memorize any particular portion, or to impress any particular detail upon your mind. Then lay it aside for a short time, while you think over its teachings in a general way. In this mental rumination try to classify the several most important topics and divisions of the general subject, but without direct reference to the book itself. Having done this, take up the book again, and this time carefully absorb each and every phase and feature of its instruction. Take your time in thus re-reading and restudying it. You will find something new in this book each and every time you take it up—no matter how many times you have previously “gone over it.”

Finally, you are not asked to accept as true the instruction contained in this book merely because we have asserted it to be true. You have at your disposal the means of testing and proving the truth of our assertions—the test of actual application, experiment, and experience. If you will earnestly and persistently put into practice the principles and methods set forth in it, you will find yourself actually manifesting and demonstrating the results logically flowing from them.

All that you are asked to do is to accept at least tentatively—as a “working hypothesis”—the general principles announced in this book, and to adopt as a “working plan” the methods it presents to you. Reserve for yourself the right to accept or to reject either principles or methods, or both, after you have subjected them to an earnest, faithful, diligent, and persistent trial in actual life and work. If you will do this, you will, in all probability, need no further argument to convince you of the truth of the underlying principles of this instruction, and of the efficacy of the methods suggested in it.

Here is the prophecy: If you will recognize, by means of your intellect, the Fundamental Principles of Personal Power; and will realize them in your feeling; then will you be able to manifest and demonstrate them in your everyday life and work, by means of the methods herein indicated, or by similar methods devised by yourself but based upon the same general principles. The principles are basic and fundamental; the methods are designed merely to enable you to apply effectively the principles—you are at liberty to adapt or to modify the latter to suit your own individual requirements.

If you attain the first two of the above stages, then assuredly you will attain the third stage—the stage of manifestation.

These first two stages may be attained by any person of average intelligence, provided that he will faithfully and earnestly apply himself or herself to the task. You are hereby challenged to test the truth of this prophecy by such a trial and experiment: but that trial and experiment must be made in good faith, in an earnest, serious spirit, and must be pursued with diligence, persistence, and insistence.

Your Master Self

The active agent of all of your conscious experience is, of course, YOURSELF. The centre of your conscious experience is that “YOU” element of your being—that

self-conscious Something or Somewhat, the actual existence and presence of which you assert when you say “I AM I.” This “I AM I” element of yourself is the one fact of your existence of which you are always absolutely certain, and concerning which you can never compel yourself to entertain any doubt.

Every time you say, or think, “I,” you assert the existence of your Self, and its presence in consciousness. No power of argument, no weight of evidence, no sophistry, no casuistry, no fallacy, can ever really convince you that your “I” does not exist; nor that it is not present in being at that moment of consciousness. You cannot truthfully assert, “I am not in existence, here and now”— for, even when you attempt to make such a denial and negation, you are conscious that it is the “I,” itself, making the attempt, and uttering the statement. Thus, even your very attempt at denial and negation is transmuted into an affirmation and assertion of your self-existence, and of the presence of Yourself at that particular time and place.

This conscious certainty of the existence and presence of the “I” is the axiomatic basis of all philosophy. It is the one

indisputable, incontrovertible, irrefragable fact of your thought and consciousness—the one fact that cannot be gainsaid, denied, refuted or overthrown. It is the one point concerning which you can feel absolutely sure and certain. Even the most acute metaphysical or philosophical argument will fail to shake your belief in your own existence, and your presence in being.

You are always able to declare in the face of all arguments, “I AM I!” You may doubt the evidence of your senses—but you can never doubt this consciousness of your own existence as a conscious being. Here, at least, you feel that you are standing on the solid rock of certainty. Your uncertainties begin only when you start to ask yourself “What and why am I?” and

“What else really IS?” But both of these questions imply your assurance that you, Yourself, are present in existence at that time and place. When you say “now,” you mean the particular period of time or duration which YOU are then experiencing. When you say “here,” you mean the particular position in space or extension which You are then experiencing. You must always say and think “I AM I, Here and Now!” but the Here and Now are relative to Yourself, and have no other meaning to you.

If you think that we are here “making much ado about nothing,” and that we are telling you something which everyone knows without being told, we will answer you by saying that upon this very point philosophers and metaphysicians have earnestly disputed from the beginning of human thought— this, because they realized that this one point, if absolutely established, furnished man with his one solid rock of reasoning; his one certain point from which he might chart and diagram his world of experience. That they have reported—as they have been compelled to report—its certainty and essential reality, is an indication of its ultimate truth. For they have made every attempt to undermine or to surmount it: they saw the folly of merely “taking it for granted.” They knew that too many things

which men “took for granted” are illusions or delusions—the flatness of the earth, or the stationery position of the earth, for instance.

Moreover, those great minds which for thousands of years have been investigating the subject of Personal Power, long since discovered the fact that before one can hope to exercise any phase of Personal Power he must first arrive at a clear, distinct, and fundamental consciousness of HIMSELF— his “I AM I”—as a reality transcending all of his mental and physical instruments; and that upon the degree of his actual consciousness of the independent existence of this “I AM I” centre of his being depends the degree of his ability to manifest Personal Power.

So, you see, we are not wasting your and our time in telling you something not needing telling. Instead, we are endeavoring to awaken in you the actual and vivid conscious perception of a fundamental truth, without which you cannot hope to manifest or demonstrate Personal Power. Omitting this basic and fundamental instruction, there would be no reason for presenting the rest of the subject to you.

This Ego, Self, “I,” or “I AM I,” which stands at the centre of your conscious experience, and which is the real Seer, Doer,

Feeler, Thinker, Willer, and Actor in your life journey, is the

Master Self—the King on the Throne of your Personal Being. To omit reference to it here would be like omitting the character of Hamlet from the play of that name. Before you can hope to manifest and demonstrate Personal Power, you must become consciously aware of that Something or Somewhat which employs and manifests that power.

Personal Power might be present in abundance, but unless there were also something present able to employ and use it, there would be no manifestation or demonstration possible. YOU are that Something. You must become consciously aware of your essential and fundamental Self, before you will be able to employ the instruments at your hand. You must recognize your sovereignty, before you may mount your throne and rule your kingdom.

We wish, however, to state emphatically at this point that in our consideration of the Master Self—the Ego or “I” which asserts “I AM I”—we shall confine ourselves entirely to the reports of consciousness concerning its presence and existence, its nature and character. We shall point out to you just how you may discover its presence at the centre of your being, and how you may awaken its latent powers and possibilities so that they may be applied effectively as Personal Power.

We shall avoid entirely the advocacy of any particular one of the many various metaphysical, philosophical, or theological speculations or dogmas concerning its nature, character, source or origin, or its destiny. We prefer to leave these subjects in the hands of those who specialize upon them; we have no desire to invade their special fields of thought, conjecture or speculation. We prefer to base our thought upon the fundamental report of self-consciousness—that inevitable, invariable, and infallible report made by self-consciousness whenever it is awakened.

For the purpose of our consideration of the Master Self in this book, and that of the instruction to be based upon this, it is sufficient to assert merely: (1) that there exists in you a Master Self, Ego, “I,” or “I AM I” entity, to which all your personal faculties, powers and activities are subordinate; (2) that this Master Self (whatever else it may be or may not be) must be regarded as a focalized centre of Presence and Power manifested and expressed by the Ultimate Presence-Power in its manifestation and expression in the Cosmos.

These two general postulates are supported by all human thought on the subject, and in one form or the other are accepted by all phases of philosophical, metaphysical, or theological thought, though variously interpreted and explained. Moreover, actual human experience is in agreement with them. We shall present the general argument to you as we proceed, showing you how firmly based and grounded they are in human thought and experience. But, even so, you are not asked to accept them as truth until your own reason and experience so report them to you.

Let us begin, then, with the consideration of the first of the above-stated postulates, viz., “There exists in you a Master Self, Ego, “I,” or “I AM I” entity, to which all of your personal faculties, powers and activities are subordinate.” The argument and proof of this proposition is to be drawn entirely from your own conscious experience, and not from any philosophical, metaphysical, or theological theories or dogmas, whatsoever. Self-analysis will furnish you with the proof; that proof once so obtained will be far more satisfying than the mere “say so” or “thus saith” of others.

We earnestly ask you to proceed carefully with this process of self-analysis, for it will bring to you results of the most practical and vital character. Do not pass over this part of the instruction as being merely theoretical, or speculative—for it is far from being so. And, above all, do not take the position that “I am willing to take this for granted without actual proof, without bothering about the investigation”; for by so doing you will miss the very kernel of the instruction. For, know you, that the process of self-analysis will not only “prove the thing” to your satisfaction: it also will awaken within you the Power of the “I AM I,” or Master Self, in a way impossible by any other means. You must not only recognize this “I AM I” intellectually, but must also realize it in feeling, before you can manifest and demonstrate it in action.

In the following several sections of this book we shall, through your own self-analysis, make you acquainted with your Master Self, your Ego, your I or “I AM I.” You will be led not only to “see” it, but also to “feel” it within yourself. This “seeing” and “feeling” constitute the first two stages or steps in Personal Power—the “doing” stage or step is the third, and results from the attainment of the first two. The more thoroughly grounded you are in the first two stages or steps, the better will you be able to attain the final one.

Your “I Am I”

We ask you now to proceed to the discovery of your Master Self by the process of self analysis. In the most general sense, one’s self is a composite of personal

mental and physical qualities, parts, factors, and elements. When you say, “myself,” (employing the term in this sense), you mean your entire personal being, outer and inner, body and mind, and possibly “spirit” as well. You use the term “self” to distinguish your entire personal being from that of another person, or those of other persons. Here you perform a process of analysis or separation. This is really the first stage or step of your self-analysis by which you proceed to discover your Master Self, or Real Self.

The second stage or step of self-analysis is that in which you abstract your Ego, “I AM I,” or Master Self from the physical self—the inner from the outer. You may do this by an act of consciousness, in which reason co-operates with the imagination.

You find that the innermost report of consciousness is that the

“I AM I” consciousness is not necessarily involved with your consciousness of your body; but that, on the contrary, the “I AM I” may conceive itself as existent even independent of the body which it inhabits. When self-consciousness says, “I AM I,” it means thereby that it, itself, the “I AM I” consciousness, is not the body, but rather is a Something or Somewhat inhabiting and occupying the body; the latter being merely a physical garment which it occupies; or the instrument or machinery which it employs in physical activity.

The “I AM I” may raise the hand attached to the physical body, by an act of will operating the physical muscles by means of currents of nerve-force directed by the mind. The “I AM I” may stand aside and contemplate the moving hand, and the act by which the hand is moved, just as it may contemplate any physical object not attached to the body. Try this, and you will see and feel this to be the case. You will find that you have the consciousness of your “I AM I” deliberately moving your hand by an act of will; the hand being merely a portion of your physical machinery. Move your hand up and down, then sidewise, until the full conception and consciousness of your true relation to it is fully grasped by you.

You will discover, by similar experiments, that you may likewise move any and every part of your physical body—even the whole body itself. Gradually there will dawn upon you the recognition and realization that your body, and each and every part or portion of it, is but a fine piece of physical machinery, the movements of which you control by your will and mind. You will, then, perhaps for the first time, realize that your body is merely your physical machinery, any part of which, or the whole of which, the “I AM I” may use, employ, control, direct, or set in motion, or render motionless, when it has learned the control of the nerves and muscles attached to and regulating the movement of the several parts of the body.

It is true that the involuntary nervous system has taken over to a great degree certain movements of the physical body—particularly those movements and processes having to do with the internal organs; but science informs you that all of the involuntary muscles were originally voluntary organs or tissues, and that they have been gradually transformed to