I wonder how you have been getting on with the practice of Lesson Ten? One thing I wish to make clear to you. You are not practising these exercises to improve your state of mind and prepare for some change in your circumstances in the future. By these exercises you are actually changing your circumstances now!
When you work with your mind (provided you work, not just wish) you are actually making more impression on your circumstances than if you took a pick and shovel and went out for on eight-hour day of road-work. When you do mental exercises of a powerful nature, such as those given in this Course, you are not just preparing for some future work you are working now!
To illustrate this I will give you an example. Let us suppose that there are two men. They are both road-workers for an electrical company. Both are desirous of the good things of life – a comfortable home, nourishing food, a good education for the children and money to spend on holidays. One of them, thinking that he has little hope of getting these things, works doggedly all day and spends his evenings at a local ‘bar’ or ‘pub’. The other man sits back in his chair in the evenings – and thinks.
“Dad’s dreaming again”, his family says laughingly. “Always building castles in the air, he is.”
“I want something better than this life”, he replies.
“Thinking about it won’t get you anywhere!” they say.
But thinking does!
For first of all that man (we’ll call him Peter) sat down and thought of what exactly he wanted from life. Then he continued to wonder what chance he had of getting it. Mentally he looked around at those others he knew. In his mind’s eye he saw the elderly men, still slogging away at their road-work with few comforts in their homes. “We working folk can’t expect anything else”, was their verdict.
But Peter thought suddenly, “No, but we thinking folk can”. For he had realised that the “high-ups” in any profession were there because they thought. While the lesser ones worked long hours at routine tasks, these others worked shorter hours. They sat in comfortable offices, had someone to bring them coffee or tea when they wanted, and do all the monotonous jobs for them, while they did – what?
“They thought”, Peter said to himself wonderingly. He was filled with an inward excitement. It wasn’t that they were always better educated than the lower ones. Look at the boss’ son I, very well educated and yet so useless in the firm that even the juniors laughed at him, His mind strayed to some of the “high-ups”. Why, one of the had actually been to his school. He began to nudge his brains for what he had heard about that man. Went to night-school, didn’t he? Used to go around the works in the evenings, sometimes. The night-watchmen laughed at him, but were glad of his company just the same. Why did he go to night-school? He was, like Peter, only a road-man then, digging trenches for the laying of cables, filling them in again. Why night-school? Well perhaps he wanted to be something more than a road-man. That was it he must have been thinking of himself in that high-up position. He must have literally thought himself into it.
With rising excitement, but still leaning lazily back in his chair evening after evening, Peter resolved to think his way up too.
But how? If he wanted to think for his firm instead of just labouring for it, no must have – yes, that’s it, ideas. Ideas for benefiting the firm, cutting down expenses, increasing efficiency. Where had he heard that an improvement was needed? Yes, now he remembered. The foreman said the boss had queried the time-sheets in that last job. Said it shouldn’t have taken so long. But it was the question of transport, said the foreman. So much waiting about.
Here peter went off into technicalities. Mentally he went over in his mind that last job. He “revised” the transport facilities, moved his “men” around in his mind as though he were playing chess, moved up “pieces” in the way of trucks. In fact he did the whole job over again as though he were actually there, and he were foreman.
The next evening he went out after supper instead of sitting in his chair. He visited the place where that last job had been done, paced out distances, made a plan “on the spot”. And found that he could have saved on that last job if he had been in charge. He made a detailed plan of the whole thing and bided his time.
The next time a jot was started, he suggested alterations to the foreman who was beginning to grow tired of the boss’ complaints about costs.
“Can’t decide anything like that on my own” he said doubtfully. “Better come and see the boss. He’s promised us all a bonus if we can cut down expenses.”
So Peter saw the boss, outlined his idea and tacked it up with his revised plan of the last job.
“When did you work that out?” queried the boss.
“In the evenings, sir.”
“Hmm. You think about your work in the evenings, eh? Well we’ll try this idea out. It looks promising.”
With one or two alterations, it worked – end the men got their bonus. The next time another foreman was needed, it was Peter who got the job and that was only the first step up.
“Well!” exclaimed his family, pleased but puzzled. “And he’s such a dreamer too.”
Do you see the idea? You improve your circumstances by thinking. Remember, there are two ways. One way is to think out a detailed plan around your own interests and capabilities. This is a powerful way to success. The second is to build a mental “mould” of prosperity in your mind to get a abundance-consciousness. To think of riches and expect riches – also a powerful method. Now, if these two methods are combined in the way I am showing you in this Course nothing can stand in the path of your success.
Continue with the exercises exactly as before. Go on “dissolving” of “No. 1. Obstacle”. Train yourself to thought build strongly by knowing what you are doing while you are doing it. Now, feel and “see” with your inner eyes the hidden forces which are being set in Motion by your words and actions. Have a tremendous belief and you will come to a tremendous success. Say often to yourself, “My good fortune will come because I am learning how to think”. And, “I thought build prosperity now” .
Here is Secret Exercise No. 4. It is the most powerful of all. Don’t speak during these exercises. Do them silently and they will raise your vibration, putting you into contact with the invisible realm where wonders happen.
Secret Exercise No 4
This is an exercise for power. Power to overcome obstacles, to grow into a spiritual giant, power to receive all that you need for a joyous, free, abundant life.
When you are alone and will be undisturbed for a while, begin your exercise. Stand up. Stretching out your right hand and turning slowly, describe a circle about you seven times. As you do this, imagine that the circles are part of a spiral and that, with every turn you rise up a vast distance into the air. At last, with the seventh turn completed, you are poised above the earth. Poised among the eternal planets and spheres! You are in touch with reality, you realise the vastness of eternity, the littleness of earth. You understand at last how safe you are, as a part of God whose spirit is in you, and how free. Now say musingly within yourself,
“I stand amid the spheres of God,
No more a thoughtless, earthly clod.
No more a weakling – I am strong
For I vibrate with planets’ song.
They whirl about me, free and fast,
I draw on their resources vast.
The very Power that holds them all
Pulsates within me at my call”
After you have done this exercise, pause reverently. Then “come back to earth” and go about your everyday life again. (Keep in mind that you can substitute one exercise for another if you wish, and in any case, retain for future use the one that appeals to you the most.)
Here is another instalment of the story of my faith. As you read the previous ones, you may have wondered why I visualised separate “huts” for offices, and not one large building. The reason was that separate huts would allow me to expand by degrees. As the money became available, I was able to add an office. This worked out well. Everything grew gradually and safely, and at no time did I keep any firm waiting for money when it became due.
The students began with a trickle, but this developed into a flood. I used to say to myself (and write in my thought building notebook) “I have a message for humanity about the love of God, about the creative power that he has planted within them. I have to tell them about human nobility because we are God’s offshoot, offspring and heir. Each one of us is an ever-living being travelling through eternity here and now. That we each have cause to feel safe end beloved, to live in the glorious liberty of the children of God. Because I have this vital message, I want to spread it far and wide to all those who are ready for it, So I expect my Work to flourish exceedingly and to he a blessing to the awakening ones in God’s Kingdom.”
So it proved. As each further office became necessary, I “saw” it and drew the supply for it from the Work itself, and so more teaching literature was able to be produced. Everybody who had the Course, wanted more. The first Course grew from eight lessons to twelve, from twelve to eighteen, from eighteen to twenty-six. ‘More, more’, pleaded the students. So I wrote other Courses (this one among them) and they also were revised and enlarged at intervals (as this one is being now, as I write). Leaflets by the hundred I wrote and had duplicated, and booklets and charts as I wrote about.
All tried and proven in my own experience. It was, and is still, a ‘living’ Work. In the next lesson, I’ll tell you some more.
REMEMBER:- Change your thoughts and you change your circumstances. You have 10 more weeks to practise prosperity-thinking. By then it should be a habit.
Bernard
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