Section 3 - Part B:

 Success, or the Law of Prosperity 

Your Subconscious Mind knows how to do a very great many other things besides building and repairing a body. The fact that it is an individualised expression of the Universal Mind gives it access to all wisdom and all power. But much less than all wisdom and all power will be needed to make you well, successful and happy. 

The fact is that the personality composed of your Objective Mind and physical body is a very small potato in a very large mound. Subconsciously you are everything, but objectively you are almost nothing; and a very small part of your subconscious wisdom and power will be needed to give your objective personality the food, clothes, shelter, money, friendship, love and happiness it needs. 

There is only one way in which you can succeed in the full sense of the word, and that is by successfully doing the things you want to do; for even if you should succeed in a distasteful line of work, you would not be happy; and success that does not bring happiness is a very poor kind of success. Few people are doing the work they really want to do. Something else promised more immediate and substantial returns, and they chose to do that job rather than the work they really wanted to do. If Mary loves John, but marries Richard because he has money, her matrimonial venture will be a failure in every true sense of the word. 

So, it is in choosing one's life work. If your heart is set upon being a doctor, you may eke out some kind of a living as a representative, but your success will be mediocre and your life will be hedged in by worries and disappointments. 

I think you will quickly see the reason why you cannot succeed in doing distasteful work. From a superficial viewpoint you fail because "your heart is not in your work". Lack of interest causes you not to take your work seriously. But the real cause lies deeper than that. You must know people who work and plan with great industry, but who nevertheless fail to get ahead? There are many people who are completely enslaved by their work, and yet they are poor and miserable. 

The Law of Reversed Effort 

At this point we again glimpse the operation of the Law of Reversed Effort, and we will pause to study it for a few minutes. The Law of Reversed Effort is a law of the Subconscious Mind. If you undertake to do something that you really do not want to do, or that you are afraid you cannot accomplish, your Subconscious Mind uses this law to turn your efforts against yourself and you will be defeated. You must memorise this last sentence, because you are here face to face with the "Terror at the Threshold" of Success, and the sooner you learn its true nature the sooner will you be able to brush it aside and proceed on your way. 

If you are not used to making public speeches, it is because you do not want to make them. But suppose your friends should one day prevail upon you to deliver the main address at some public function. For several days beforehand you would carefully go over all that you intended to say. Probably you would reduce it all to writing and carefully memorise it. You might even go away to some quiet place and deliver your entire memorised speech aloud. All the while you would be mentally rebellious against making the speech at all. You would finally stand before your audience, ready to deliver your carefully memorised and much-practised speech. 

Before you had gone very far your Subconscious Mind would lay an inhibition upon your memory; and in spite of all your efforts to remember, whole pages of your speech would be entirely blotted out. You would then try mentally to leap across the chasm and land upon some remembered paragraph; but another memory-chasm would soon appear, and yet another, until you would finally mumble something you had never intended to say, and wind up in utter confusion. If you went upon the platform fearing that you might forget, your failure would be all the swifter and more complete, because you would expose yourself to the operation of the Law from two different angles. 

You could indefinitely walk along a plank laid upon the ground. But do you think you could walk it if it were stretched across a street from the top of one tall building to the top of another? Not unless you were trained to do such things! You would be afraid of falling, and your efforts to steady yourself would make you wobble all the more until you eventually fell to your death. 

The same powerful Law that would make you forget the speech you did not want to make, and that would prevent you from walking where you were afraid to walk, operates through all the other affairs of your life. You accidentally break the breakable things you do not like, mislay the things you do not really wish to keep, and tear and soil the clothes that are unfashionable. Of course, some of this breaking, mislaying and soiling is the result of carelessness brought on by lack of interest. But the more care you exercise under these circumstances the more swiftly will the loss or destruction take place. 

On the other hand, if you fear that something you prize very highly will be lost or destroyed, this fear will inevitably lead to its loss or destruction, just as your efforts to steady yourself in a high place where you are afraid will send you all the more swiftly to the ground. 

The Danger of Opposing Imagination with Will

There is yet another way of invoking the Law of Reversed Effort attempting to oppose Imagination with Will. For instance, if you were unfortunately to become ill and you sat down quietly and said to yourself: "I know I am ill; I know I am thin; I have night sweats; and I am in pain all the time. However, I have the subconscious power to put all these things right, and I am determined to do so by an effort of Will", then you would bring into operation on yourself the Law of Reversed Effort simply by opposing Imagination with Will. Imagination would constantly picture your suffering from the illness, and your efforts to cast out Imagination by the power of Will would invoke this destructive Law. If you should make the mistake of saying, "There is really nothing the matter with me, and these symptoms are simply delusions", the reaction of your Imagination would be all the more powerful, and its destructive effects all the more certain. An effort to supplant Imagination with Will is just as disastrous in business affairs as in affairs of the body.  

The operation of the Law of Reversed Effort has been the subject of extensive experimentation, has been carefully studied in the affairs of everyday life, and is well known as a matter of scientific fact. All the experiments and practices explained in these Lessons are carefully designed to steer you clear of its operation. It is a peril around which I guided you for a while without even mentioning it, because the simple fact of calling your attention to it at that time might have caused you to become a victim of it. But you have now progressed to a point at which the knowledge of it is no longer dangerous to you, and from now on you will find such knowledge very useful. 

The Open Road to Success 

Now let us return to the open road to success. I think you can now see that in order to be really successful you must do the work you want to do. To you, such a thing may seem impossible. You are too well anchored where you are. You know at least something about the work you are in, and are making some kind of a living at it. You know little or nothing about the work you would like to do, and before you could gain proficiency in it, and make it give you a living income, you and your dependants would lack the necessities of life. All these things come into your mind as evidence that the change is impossible. But do you not think it is about time for you to draw a red line through that word "impossible" in your mental dictionary? You, who have at your call an infinity of wisdom and power, shackled and bound down by a cobweb labelled "impossible"! Jesus said, "All things are possible to him that believeth" (Mark ix. 23). Obviously, this means that all things are possible to them that believe all things to be possible. Believe! Snap the cobweb! Arise! Be free! "The truth shall make you free" (John viii. 32). The truth about your own wonderful self is a sledge-hammer that breaks every shackle and batters down every prison door. That sledge hammer is here being placed in your hands. Strike for your freedom! Leave the gloomy prison of doubt and fear, and go forth into the sunshine of liberty, faith and courage! 

This forceful and metaphorical language is not intended to induce you at once to cast aside all your current affairs and plans and go chasing after rainbows. It is intended to drive home to your inner consciousness a realization of the fact that the reins of your destiny are in your own hands; that you can be anything you wish to be, provided that these things are not in violation of any natural law. 

Many people say they do not know just what kind of work they would rather do, and that they do not remember ever having had any preference for a particular line of work. Such persons simply fail to understand just what is meant by the word "work". For instance, I once closely questioned a student who insisted that he didn't know what sort of work he wanted to do, but he finally said, half-blushingly: "Well, I have always had a foolish idea that, if I had time and opportunity, I would rather paint pictures than do anything else." If he had followed the guidance of that "foolish idea", and had applied the truths you are learning here, he might have ranked with Titian, da Vinci, Whistler and Turner. Even the inspiration of his desire, without the exact application of these truths, would have guided him into a large measure of success. But he said no to the "foolish idea" and settled down into the exacting and drab routine of a clerical job. 

Again, suppose a certain person who really wants to be a civil engineer should go into the retail grocery business. He would put into operation the Law of Reversed Effort. He would tie up his money and credit in unsaleable stock; he would choose a poor site; he would say and do things that would repel his customers; he would trust dishonest people; and would generally exercise poor business judgment. If he should be determined to gain success from his failure by an effort of Will, he would only make matters worse. Here lies the cause of practically all the failures and half-successes in the world. 

How to Enjoy Your Work 

If you are not doing the work you want to do, there are two ways out of your difficulty. The first way is to learn to like the work or business you are in. The second way is to get out of the work you are in and do the work you want to do. Either of these two ways will set you on the road to success. Your preference for a certain line of work is not based upon any particular formation of your brain, but rather upon a mental condition. And that mental condition is the result of one or more suggestions that have reached the upper phases of your Subconscious Mind. The effects of that previous suggestion can be erased by a counter-suggestion.

In this process of learning to like your work, you can get excellent results by the use of your clock. When you go to bed at night, first think of all the good things connected with your work- its usefulness to other people, and the benefit it gives you by providing you and your loved ones with the necessities of life. Think of it as the means with which you may get into the work you want to do. You will soon be able to make out a fine argument on its behalf. Then say to yourself over and over again, slowly and deliberately, "My work is useful to me and others, and I like it better every day". When you begin to get drowsy, turn your attention to the clock, and hear it say, "I like it better - I like it better" until you fall asleep. 

If you faithfully carry out this formula for a few days you will be surprised at the results. Your work will take on a new meaning, and almost every day you will find in it some attractiveness that you have previously overlooked. As your mental revolt against your work or business diminishes, the operation of the Law of Reversed Effort will also diminish, and you will head toward success. 

When you have succeeded in learning to like your work, you should change your formula. Your preliminary assertion should be, "Day by day, in every way, I am more and more successful". Then, when you grow drowsy, give the clock the last phrase of this assertion and listen to it say, "I am more and more successful", until you fall asleep. If you are already doing the work you want to do, but without making a success of it, then you should leave out the first formula and use the last one. 

One Single Thought: Succes! 

These are simple methods, but if they are faithfully employed they are all-sufficient to bring a general trend towards success. The processes invoked by them are not nearly so simple as the methods themselves. The first method makes you like the work to which you feel bound, but which is distasteful, and closes one avenue through which the disastrous Law of Reversed Effort might strike you. The second method casts out all fear of failure, and replaces it with confidence of success closing the other avenue through which the Law of Reversed Effort might get in its work. It also isolates the single thought of a constant and gradual attainment of success invoking the marvellous wisdom and power of your Subconscious Mind to make the isolated thought realise itself in your affairs. 

Once you have perceived the laws involved in these methods, you will be able to vary them in many different ways to suit different situations. 

If you are out of work and have a job in prospect, you might let your clock say, "I'll get that job next week". Or if you have an important business deal pending, you might let it say, "I'll close that deal". Or if you are seeking a loan, you might let it say, "I'll get that loan". And so on in as many variations as there are economic problems that present themselves for solution. 

Turn Day-Dreams into Reality 

Both of these success processes fall within the somnolent method. But there are also several processes falling within the wakeful method. One of them is the picture-making process of getting specific things. You will remember that I suggested it for owning a new house. You can get a new job, a car, a larger factory, or more business in the same way. Make your mental plan carefully, working on it for a while every day, until you get even the small details just as you want them. Then again for a while each day mentally go and live with your picture, going over it minutely and enjoying it. Sooner or later, you will forget that you are merely day- dreaming, and for a moment will imagine it to be really true. This state of mind instantly passes the whole picture to your Subconscious Mind as a working plan, and it immediately begins the preliminary work of making the picture a reality. 

Another waking method of attaining success involves the exercise of looking steadily at a bright object until your mind becomes a blank. 

The technical part of this process has already been described. You should not attempt by that process to send your Subconscious Mind a message relating to any particular means by which your success is to be achieved. Simply use it as a "treatment for success", realizing that its accomplishment will set you on the road to prosperity. When your Objective Mind becomes blank, your Subconscious Mind will get the single general thought that the success of the experiment means also your success in business, and will proceed to make the general thought a general reality. 

There are numerous other processes that might be suggested, but I think you will find these to be entirely sufficient. In fact, I suspect that your work under the somnolent method will be so easy, so fascinating, and so entirely satisfactory, that you will soon not attempt to work under the wakeful method. 

Let me again caution you to keep your Will out of all these processes, and to be careful not to assert as an accomplished fact something that you know to be untrue. If you should say, "I am now fully successful", Imagination would evoke a mental picture to dispute the assertion, and it would be nullified. But Imagination will not protest against the assertion that you are now on the way towards success, and that sometime in the near future you will attain it.

In performing these exercises, you should seek to glide easily and peacefully into a half-waking, half-sleeping attitude of mind, in which Will is in abeyance, and allow your Imagination to carry you forward to a realisation of the single idea that you have brought with you into that state. 

The Star of Your Destiny is in You 

Leave to your Subconscious Mind the means by which your success will come. It will do you good, however, to realise that the star of your destiny is in yourself. Success is based on a few very simple things. If you only knew what to do, what to say, where to go, and whom to see, you could work out for yourself a marvellous success. Once you have invoked the wisdom and power of the Subconscious Mind, it will unerringly guide you in all these things. If anything, else is necessary to be done, it will prompt you to do it, but the chances are that nothing else will be necessary. 

When you have learned to like your present work, and have made a success of it, you will be able to go into some other line, if the wish to do so still persists. 

Your ability to draw upon your hidden forces for achieving success will give you a tremendous advantage over others who do not have this ability. But if you should be weak enough to do wrong to others, you would choke the fountain of your power at its very source. Then you would unleash the "Terror at the Threshold" to the destruction of everything you have accomplished. The prime ethical rule of the Subconscious Mind is that you shall always strive to do exact justice to everyone you meet. If you should take it into partnership, and then knowingly violate this rule, it would dissolve the partnership and visit upon you a full measure of retribution for your misdeed. It will give you every desire of your heart, and insist that you shall pay for it, but it will also provide the means of payment.