LESSON XVII. IDEALS DEVELOPED BY CONCENTRATION
Through our paltry stir and strife, Glows the wished Ideal, And
longing molds in clay, what life Carves in the marble
real.--Lowell.
We often hear people spoken of as idealists. The fact is we are
all idealists to a certain extent, and upon the ideals we picture
depends our ultimate success. You must have the mental image if
you are to produce the material thing. Everything is first
created in the mind. When you control your thoughts you become a
creator. You receive divine ideas and shape them to your
individual needs. All things of this world are to you just what
you think they are. Your happiness and success depend upon your
ideals.
You are responsible for every condition you go through, either
consciously or unconsciously. The next step you take determines
the succeeding step. Remember this; it is a valuable lesson. By
concentrating on each step as you go along, you can save a lot of
waste steps and will be able to choose a straight path instead of
a roundabout road.
Concentrate Upon Your Ideals and They Will Become Material
Actualities. Through concentration we work out our ideals in
physical life. Your future depends upon the ideals you are
forming now. Your past ideals are determining your present.
Therefore, if you want a bright future, you must begin to prepare
for it today.
If persons could only realize that they can only injure
themselves, that when they are apparently injuring others they
are really injuring themselves, what a different world this would
be!
We say a man is as changeable as the weather. What is meant is
his ideals change. Every time you change your ideal you think
differently. You become like a rudderless boat on an ocean.
Therefore realize the importance of holding to your ideal until
it becomes a reality.
You get up in the morning determined that nothing will make you
lose your temper. This is your ideal of a person of real strength
and poise. Something takes place that upsets you completely and
you lose your temper. For the time being you forget your ideal.
If you had just thought a second of what a well-poised person
implies you would not have become angry. You lose your poise when
you forget your ideal. Each time we allow our ideals to be
shattered we also weaken our will-power. Holding to your ideals
develops will-power. Don't forget this.
Why do so many men fail? Because they don't hold to their ideal
until it becomes a mental habit. When they concentrate on it to
the exclusion of all other things it becomes a reality.
"I am that which I think myself to be."
Ideals are reflected to us from the unseen spirit. The laws of
matter and spirit are not the same. One can be broken, but not
the other. To the extent that ideals are kept is your future
assured.
It was never intended that man should suffer. He has brought it
upon himself by disobeying the laws of nature. He knows them so
cannot plead ignorance. Why does he break them? Because he does
not pay attention to those ideals flashed to him from the
Infinite Spirit.
Life is but one continuous unfoldment, and you can be happy every
step of the way or miserable, as you please; it all depends upon
how we entertain those silent whisperings that come from we know
not where. We cannot hear them with mortal ear, but from the
silence they come as if they were dreams, not to you or me alone,
but to everyone. In this way the grandest thoughts come to us, to
use or abuse. So search not in treasured volumes for noble
thoughts, but within, and bright and glowing vision will come to
be realized now and hereafter.
You must give some hours to concentrated, consistent, persistent
thought. You must study yourself and your weaknesses.
No man gets over a fence by wishing himself on the other side. He
must climb.
No man gets out of the rut of dull, tiresome, monotonous life by
merely wishing himself out of the rut. He must climb.
If you are standing still, or going backward, there is something
wrong. You are the man to find out what is wrong.
Don't think that you are neglected, or not understood, or not
appreciated.
Such thoughts are the thoughts of failure.
Think hard about the fact that men who have got what you envy got
it by working for it.
Don't pity yourself, criticise yourself.
You know that the only thing in the world that you have got to
count upon is yourself.
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