As we have only a few more lessons to complete the Course, the time would be best spent in gathering together what has been learnt so far and setting it firmly into your life for future use. For instance, how are you getting on with the overcoming of “Obstacle No. 1.”?
By now you should either have demolished it altogether, or else become versed in the method of its destruction that you will carry on almost automatically until it has quite gone. So at this point, put the next on your list, “Obstacle No. 2.”, in its place. If you have demolished “No. 1.” cross it through. If not, put a tick against it to show that you have the matter well in hand.
Your note-book you should keep for future reference, long after you have completed this Course. Go back to it occasionally, making sure that the obstacles stay demolished! Continue, week by week, dealing calmly with each obstacle in turn until they are all gone.
You may accomplish this by the time you come to the end of these lessons. On the other hand, it may take you much longer. But whichever it is, go right on, doing the very thing you find it hard to do! If, for instance, you have the weakness of not persisting in a task you undertake, say to yourself, “I will complete today this uncompleted task”. Say it and do it.
If you feel that somebody is “putting on you”, and in the past you have been too timid to stand up for what you feel is right and just, say within yourself, “I will hold to what I consider a just action today”. Then hold to that.
Remember what I have said in an earlier lesson about truth. Be true to yourself as well as to others. Tell yourself that you will do a certain thing, then do not betray yourself, but carry out what you have promised.
The demolishing of obstacles may seem rather dull at first sight and may even appear to have little or nothing to do with success, but actually it has a great deal to do with it It’s clearing the pathway to your desires!
In the beginning of these lessons I described to you the “golden gate” that stood between you and your good fortune. I explained then, that the gate was made of mind-stuff only and that you would pass through it to good fortune easily when your mind and the “golden gate” were one. Clearing away obstacles is for this very purpose. It will enable you to pass through the gate to success when the obstacles that have been holding you back, have gone.
Have you ever heard of the peculiarity of people who sleepwalk? They will climb to dizzy heights, clinging to frail supports, balancing perfectly. But if they are awakened, they will fall. When awake, they become aware of the obstacles of fear, weakness or uncertainty in their conscious minds. When you demolish these obstacles entirely, you can achieve all that a sleep-walker achieves, but much more when you are fully awake because there are no obstacles of which to become aware. Then you are invincible. You believe in yourself, and with good reason, for you know that there is nothing to keep you from your success. Are you beginning to understand the deep truth beneath those scriptural words, “If thou cans’t believe, all things are possible to him that believeth”?
You don’t have to try to believe in something that does not exist. You believe because you have good, solid ground for believing You can say with truth, “I have conquered myself and therefore there are no longer any obstacles to my success”.
Formerly, you only thought the obstacles into being. You thought you could not be friendly, thought you could not complete a task, thought you were timid – but as soon as you told yourself that you were none of these things and intended to be just the opposite, you found that it was so. You discovered that the obstacle was in your own mind, and had no reality at all! As soon as you believed in your own God-given power, believed in yourself, in fact, you could do anything you willed to do.
“All things are possible to him that believeth.” So keep right on with demolishing those obstacles. Remember they are only in your mind. All your life so far, you have been deluded into thinking they were real. Not so! They are only in your thought. Change your thought and you find the obstacles have disappeared. That is why we should never dwell miserably on faults and allow them to discourage us. They are only errors of thought, and actions follow. Change the thought and you can turn yourself into what you think. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
Keep at it, happily overcoming those obstacles by the changing of your thought. Think always a strong, optimistic personality for yourself – and think of yourself always as prosperous.
Remember that you have the right to be prosperous because you are a child of God who is the Source of all prosperity. Say to yourself:
“I DRAW TO MYSELF THE PROSPERITY THAT IS MINE,
BECAUSE I SEE MYSELF, LOVED CHILD OF THE DIVINE.”
What about your Victory Box? It should have a few coins in it now. (Go on putting them in regularly. Perhaps you will make this a lifelong habit.) Now is the time for your first dip into that little fund. First, take out one quarter of it and give it away. Don’t just give it to the first child you see, or anything like that. However small it is, think what you will do with it. You might like to send a greeting card to somebody who is lonely, get a magazine for somebody who is ill, give a present to a lonely child. Enjoy doing it – then spend the rest on a little treat for yourself. (You have cause for a celebration because of your victories!) Do this each time you dip into your Victory Box fund. It will bring you more than a few coins in profit, as you will discover.
In these lessons I know you have enjoyed reading of my own thought building adventures, and other people’s too. So I am ending this lesson by telling you more of students’ achievements. As regards the size of a “thought brick”, this must take top place It concerns the sum of £250,000 that a man needed to put his affairs in order. What a figure! {Please note this lesson was written in the 60’s and the sum would be considerably more in today’s money. – William M.}
Here is his story in fragments that I have linked together:-
“It’s August Bank Holiday Saturday, 1964. One year ago today I was a broken, desperate man with business worries so great that there seemed no way out, to the tune of something like a quarter of a million pounds. In August 1963 I wrote to you and enrolled. Everything has been transformed in a miraculous way. Land, property, finance, personal life. I lived, slept, walked, thought and practised your teachings. One lesson of yours did more for me than the nine years of my previous studies put together. You saved and transformed my life.”
Isn’t that thrilling? It shows how practical and far-reaching faith is! Here is another instance: –
“Wonder if you remember nearly two years ago? I told you that I was thinking of taking up oil painting. Had passed my driving test and learnt to swim. Well I have just had two pictures classed good enough for the Exhibition. What blessings I have received from your teachings. Am now looking forward to retirement.”
It demonstrates how youth-giving true faith can be, doesn’t it? For note the “near retirement” age of this student! The next report concerns a changed address:
“The end of this wonderful Course. We have changed our address. My husband found a good job with great future prospects. Nice, unfurnished houses are difficult to find, but this lovely cottage with a charming garden and fruiting grape-vine along the front of the house, was just waiting for us. Things have turned out well and people have been so kind.”
Then there is this splendid “out of the blue” happening:-
“My daughter’s tied house was up on the 15th. Through thought building, out of the blue she was given a house in the country. It has four bedrooms and a garden – and I can have my own flat! I am moving in about a month’s time. Sometimes I can’t imagine that this is me. After years of frustration, to have come out into the light.”
I begun these quotations with a success that I said should take top place for size. I’ll end them with one that I think should be given top place for achievement in advanced years, even though have quoted it elsewhere.
“As you see from my address, here I am at home. I’d promised to be home for my 8Oth birthday. We had a lovely party. My daughter, realising naturally that no one could possibly blow out eighty candles, had one enormous candle. It was lit, the lights put out, and my three tiny great grandchildren blew it out and sang ‘Happy Birthday’. Wasn’t that pleasant? My great standby has been the ‘Four Walls’ Chart. And how wonderfully all turned out. Now I’m working in television with great success, end have contracts for months ahead and offers of more and more whenever I want it.”
I’ll tell you a little about the above circumstances. The writer is an actress who lived and worked in the UK for years. Sometimes she appeared at various theatres, and I saw her in plays and features on television a number of times. She had, I believe, all the Courses in turn and naturally, our newsletter as a “regular”. Every now and again she told me, “I have promised to retire home to Australia for my eightieth birthday, and am thought building for it.” And, that is exactly what she achieve. She sold her London flat, packed her belongings and travelled alone. But even then, as you see, he had no thought of retiring – she’s enjoying life so much. At the time of writing this, she still gets the newsletter. .
Remember:- Change your thoughts and you change your circumstances. You have 4 more weeks to practise prosperity-thinking. By then it should be a habit.
Bernard
—ooOoo—