PERSONAL POWER (Complete 12 Volume Edition). William Walker AtkinsonЧитать онлайн книгу.
early stage or phase of Desire Power, it is possible to arouse and stimulate it into activity, to the end that it may later be directed into definite channels of expression and manifestation. Moreover, we believe that Nature has proceeded in just this way in her numerous sharp advances, rises, and “jumps” in the evolutionary process, in which the living things have made progress at a rate far beyond the normal. We believe that Nature has caused a “bubbling over” at such periods, and has caused the overflowing Desire Power to seek new and wider channels of manifestation.
Of course, we realize that this stirring up or agitation of your latent Desire Power is apt to—in fact, certainly will—create additional Discontent on your part; but what of it? Some philosophers praise the Spirit of Contentment, and say that Happiness is to be found only therein. Be that as it may, it may be as positively asserted that all Progress proceeds from Discontent.
It is, of course, very philosophical to follow the advice, “If you can’t have what you like, you must like what you have,”—this idea produces a certain feeling of content. But we would add to the aphorism the following qualifying clause, viz., “but you can’t be sure that you can’t have what you like, until you have exhausted all possible means of getting it.”
While admitting the value of Content, at the same time we believe in preaching the “Gospel of Discontent” to a sane degree and extent. We believe that Discontent is the first step on the Path of Attainment. We believe that it is just this very Divine Discontent that causes men and women to undertake the Divine Adventure of Life, and which is back of and under all human progress. Content may be carried quite too far. Absolute Content results in Apathy and Lethargy—it stops the wheels of Progress. Nature evidently is not Content, else it would cease to manifest the process of Evolution. Nature has evidently been ever filled with the Spirit of Discontent, judging from her invariable manifestation of the Law of Change. Without Discontent and the Desire to Change, there would be no Change in Nature. The Law of Change shows plainly Nature’s opinion on the subject, and her prevailing feelings and desires in the matter.
You will do well to begin by “treating” your great body of elemental Desire Power for increased activity, and for the transmutation of its static power into dynamic power—bringing it from its state of semirest into the state of increased restlessness and tendency to flow forth into action. You may do this in the same way that you will later employ in the case of specific, particular, and definite desires, i. e., by presenting to it suggestive and inciting ideas and mental pictures!
Begin by presenting to your elemental Desire Power the suggestive idea and mental picture of itself as akin to the great lake of molten lava, or liquid fire, filled with latent and nascent energy, power, and force; filled with the elemental urge toward expression and manifestation in outward form and action; able and willing to accomplish anything it desires to do with sufficient strength, providing a definite channel is provided for its flow of power. Show it the picture of itself as ready and willing to transmute its static energy into dynamic force, and to pour forth along the channels which you will provide for it—and above all else, quite able to do this if it will but arouse itself into dynamic action. In short, present to its gaze your idealistic and ideative mental equipment in the form of the surface of a great mirror, reflecting the picture of the elemental Desire Power as it presents itself to that mirror—let Desire Power see itself as it is. Supply Desire with its complementary Idea.
You will do well to accompany this mental picture with a verbal statement or affirmation of the details of that picture. Treat your elemental Desire Power as if it were an entity—there is a valid psychological reason for this, by the way—and tell it in exact words just what it is, what are its powers, and what is its essential nature displaying the disposition to express and manifest itself in outward form and activity. Pound these suggestive statements into it, as firmly, earnestly and persistently as you can. Supply the Desire Power with the element of Idea and Mental Pictures. Give it the picture of what it is, and the pattern or diagram of what it can do if it will.
The result of this course of “treatment” applied to your elemental Desire Power will soon show itself in an increased feeling of more vigorous rhythmic tidalmovement and sidetoside movement, as previously described; and in an increased rate and vigor of its seething, boiling, effervescing ebullition. From its depths will arise mighty impulses and urges, upheavals and uprisings. The great moltenlake of Desire Power will begin to boil with increased vigor, and will show an inclination to produce the Steam of Will. You will experience new and strange evidences of the urge of Desire Power within you, seeking expression and manifestation along the channels which you have provided for it. As yet, however, the desires will not have taken on definite form or direction; they will manifest merely in the state which has been called that of “Raw Desire”—the great elemental general Desire Power immanent in all things.
But before reaching this stage, you must have created the channels through and in which you wish the overflowing Desire Power to flow when it reaches the “boiling over” stage. These channels must be built along the lines of those desires which you have proved to be your Dominant Desires. Build these channels, deep, wide and strong. From them you can afterward build minor channels for your secondary and derivative desires arising from your Dominant Desires. At present, however, your main concern is with your main channels. Let each channel represent the clear, deep, strong idea and mental picture of “just what you want” as you clearly see and know it. You have found out exactly what you want, when you want it, and how you want it; let your channels represent as closely as may be just these ideas. Build the banks high, so as to obviate any waste; build the walls strong, so as to stand the strain; build the channel deep and wide, so as to carry the full force and quantity of the current.
By “creating the channels” of your Dominant Desires; we mean establishing the paths to be traversed by the overflowing current of Desire Power which you have aroused from its latent and nascent condition. These channels or paths are created mentally by the employment of Creative Imagination and Ideation. These mental forces proceed to manifest in the direction of creating and presenting to your consciousness the ideas and mental pictures of your Dominant Desires which you have discovered in your process of Self-Analysis. The work of creating these channels is really but a continuation of the mental work performed by you in the discovery of your Dominant Desires.
In creating these channels you should observe three general rules, as follows:
(1) Make the Channels Clear and Clean by creating and maintaining a clear, clean, distinct, and definite idea of each of your Dominant Desires, in which idea the entire thought concerning the Dominant Desire is condensed and in which there is no foreign or nonessential material.
(2) Make the Channels Deep and Wide by forming mental pictures or suggestive ideas appealing to the emotional feelings associated with the Dominant Desires, and thus tempting the appetites of those desires by the representation of the objects of their longing, and by the presentation of imaginative pictures of the joys which will attend their final achievement and attainment.
(3) Make the Banks Strong by means of the employment of the Persistent Determination of the Will, so that the powerful swift current may be confined within the limits of the Dominant Desire and not be permitted to escape and waste itself by scattering its energy and force over the surrounding land.
When your current is flowing freely, you will find it necessary to build minor channels serving to bring about the attainment of objects and ends helpful to the accomplishment of the objects and ends of the major channels. In building these minor channels, follow the same general rules and principles which we have given you. From the great main channels down to the tiniest canal the same principle is involved. Always build clear and clean, by means of definite ideas and aims; always build deep and wide, by means of suggestive ideas and mental pictures; always build strong banks, by means of the determined will.
In concluding this consideration of the second requisite, i. e., the element of “wanting it hard enough,” we wish to impress upon your mind the tremendous vitalizing, and inciting power exerted by Suggestive Ideas and Mental Pictures upon Desire Power. Suggestive Ideas and Mental Pictures act upon Desire Power with a tremendous degree of effect in the direction of inciting, arousing, stirring, stimulating, exciting, spurring, goading, provoking, moving,