Читать книгу The Prosperity & Wealth Bible - Kahlil Gibran - Страница 211

We know not how much faith the pupil may have in the Unseen Universe or in the Agency of Unseen Intelligences in Mortal Life, yet we shall venture to state the Law of Financial Success which has come down to us from very ancient sources, and is believed by many to have had an Occult origin. In fact, it purports to be a teaching revealed in these later days from a noted Hindu Scientist of four thousand years ago. It professes to be the law of worldly increase as seen from the standpoint of spirit life, and it is stated above in the Caption of this paragraph: “Make the World your debtor,” by serving humanity in every way, but especially on the highest possible plane of service, the spiritual. Make the debt as great as possible. Do all the good you can, every time you can, everywhere you can, in every way you can, and to every man.

The underlying thought is that the Angels who administer God’s providence here on the mortal plane and are guardians over humanity, will accept as done unto themselves every act of kindness to mortals, and endeavor to repay not only in spiritual but also in temporal good.

The thought of the kindly sympathy and help of the angels of God must bring strength and cheer to every worker for human good.

Great Ideas and Projects Interest Great Minds

Most lives, as we have already pointed out, are poor and mean in their outward expression and conditions because the individuals are mentally poor and poverty-stricken. Little thoughts, plans, ideals beget little interest, little effort, little zeal in the individual, and awaken little or no interest in other minds. The radical difference between the pop-corn man on the corner and the Captain of Industry or the financial magnate, is in the size of their ideas and conceptions. Pop-corn ideas beget a ‘pop-corn life; great ideas, projects, enterprises, on the other hand, rouse the soul of the individual to zeal, effort, courage, daring, commensurate with the great ideas.

Great men cannot be approached with any project of a trifling character; time and mental force are too valuable to waste on things not “worth while.” If we accept the theory of an overshadowing spiritual universe thronged with guardian intelligences of humanity, we may well believe that the noblest intelligences over there will not enter into alliance with any mortal here, who is not doing something “worth while.”

A man should continually plan greater and still greater enterprises for himself should have the courage and daring to embark upon these new enterprises trusting in the unfolding powers of his own soul, in the great law of evolution, in the angelic help, and in the “Star of Destiny” to crown his efforts with success. Great Ideas and Projects if accompanied by sound judgment, proper, plans and proportionate zeal produce Great Men and Great Success.

Cultivate Strength of Will Power

The Will is the directive faculty oi the soul and when in harmony with Nature may become the channel of personal and spiritual energy as real as the force of gravitation or electricity. If wrongly directed it cannot of itself insure success, for the human will must ever be subject to, and in harmony with, the Divine Will. Some teachers and writers speak as though the individual man simply by will power could set aside the laws of nature, or thwart the divine will as expressed in general law.

Not so. As well assert that a man by taking hold of his boot straps could lift himself over a mountain. But where a man wills truth and righteousness or formulates any great plan in harmony with Nature’s ordination, the will of man thus becomes one with the Universal Will, which is a channel of the divine forces of the Universe. There seems to be no real limit to human achievement in harmony with nature’s laws if pursued unfalteringly by a strong and unconquerable will. The basis of all personal power resides in this will. All great and successful characters possess it in high degree.

A strong will is a mighty cyclonic force in human nature that creates a current of vibrations toward its possessor, along which are brought to him the very objects willed.

It operates by natural law yet its results seem at times miraculous.

The pupil should by frequent affirmation to himself, in the temple of his own Soul, assert his Will and Ability to conquer all difficulties. Many have suggested this affirmation for constant use: “I can and I will.”

The human will, that force unseen

The offspring of a deathless soul,

Can hew a way to any goal,

Though walls of granite intervene.

It was this Will Power developed in high degree, which transformed the little Corsican into the most magnificent military leader and conqueror the world ever saw, Napoleon Buonaparte. He would regard nothing as impossible, insisting that the word “impossible” was only found in the dictionary of fools, that it was not a French word at all. When told that the Alps stood in the way of his victorious march into Italy he simply said: “There shall be no Alps,” and the Simplon Pass was the result.

Keep a Watchful Eye for Opportunities

The seeker of wealth must keep all his mental faculties alert in watching for “openings” “chances,” “favorable tides.” and be fertile enough in plans and bold enough in courage, to turn them to account.

“Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.” Shakespeare says,

“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at its flood, leads on to fortune.”

A man should be ready in advance for these open doors. The man in service should always be ready for a higher post.

He who does not more than fill his position is not fitted for a higher one. Read the lives of men who have risen from the lowest to the highest rung of the ladder and you will find men who have prepared themselves in advance, and by extra service prepared their own advance.

When the door opens, enter. When Opportunity comes your way, seize her by the forelock for as the ancients declared she is bald behind. The Spanish have a motto:

“Half the misfortunes in life come from holding in one’s horse when he is leaping.”

“Remember: Money Comes from Doing”

The pupil will bear in mind that if great stress has been laid on right thinking, feeling, willing, and much labor spent in the psychology of the subject, it is all with one object in view: right action at the right time. Nothing can take the place of patient, plodding industry; ideas expressed in action; zeal, will-power, faith and energy translated into work.

Helen Wilmans says most truly: “Money comes from doing.”

WALLACE D. WATTLES’

PRACTICAL IDEAS

In a little pamphlet, “How to Get What You Want” Mr. Wallace D. Wattles gives some very valuable and pertinent advice on Money Making, as well as on other lines of success. We summarize a few of his most practical teachings:

The cause of success is always in the person who succeeds ; all minds are formed of the same essential elements, and contain the same faculties, the difference in men is the degree of their development; it is certain, therefore, that you can succeed if you can find out the cause of success, develop it to sufficient strength and apply it properly in your work; you can develop any power to an unlimited extent, therefore you can develop enough success power to succeed; you must develop special faculties to be used in your own special work; you must choose for a business the one which will call for the use of your strongest faculties, and then develop these strongest faculties to the highest point possible; success depends not alone or chiefly on the possession of these special faculties which are only the tools of success but more upon the power which uses the tools; this something in the person which causes him to use his special faculties successfully we call Active Power-Consciousness; it is poise and more than poise, it is faith and more than faith, it is what you feel when you know you can do a thing and know how to do the thing ; you must learn how to create this Power-Consciousness so you will know you can do what you want to do ; you must not only believe you can succeed, but must also know you can succeed; and the sub-conscious mind must know you can succeed as well as the objective mind; people may think objectively they can succeed, but sub-consciously doubt that they will and the sub-conscious doubt will thwart success: the sub-conscious mind must be thoroughly impregnated with the knowledge that you have the power and know how to use it and will use it.

Repeated affirmations for a month, especially just before sleep, of such statements as the following will help you create the sub-conscious knowledge of success: “I can succeed:” “I am successful:” “what others have done I can do:” “I can do what I want to do;” “I can have what I want to have.”

To get more you must make the best constructive use of what you have: progress depends on the perfection of your use of what you have; the squirrel by jumping, through the law of evolution, in time obtains wings; you will never have wings if you only jump half as far as you can. Every person who does one thing perfectly is instantly presented with an opportunity of doing some larger thing; the law is that wherever an organization has more life than can find expression by functioning on a given plane, its surplus life lifts it to the next higher plane; live for the future now but do not live in the future now ; get more business, more friends, better position by using constructively what you have now; concentrate all your constructive energies on the use of what you have today; make every transaction, experience (even the adverse ones) a stepping stone to nobler things ; remember it is the surplus of life (ability) on one plane which, under evolution, prepares for the next higher plane; make friends by taking a real interest in every one you meet; fill perfectly every present relation and be ready in advance for the promotion sure to come.

How Helen Wilmans Conquered Poverty

“Lives of great men” and of great women as well, “all remind us, we can make our lives sublime.” No truth in words impresses us so strongly as the truth in a life. Helen Wilmans’ life story is a Bible of Revelations for the age in which we live full of the new thought, the new theology and the divinest inspiration.

Mrs. Wilmans declares that fear is at the bottom of poverty fear of others and distrust of self. She declares: “I have known poverty most thoroughly. I was held in a belief of its power all through the earlier part of my life; I looked to others as my superiors, I was ready to take a place beneath them; I was tortured day and night by actual want.”

“Then my reasoning powers began to awaken, first on the subject of religion, then on other things and my mind broke its fetters so I began to see the light. I threw off a hundred beliefs considered essential to salvation. I slowly acquired a measure of individuality that enabled me to stand alone.”

Read the story of her life; it is thrilling and most instructively interesting. A farmer’s wife, the farm mortgaged and then sold, in poverty, all her possessions in a valise, without money, securing a ride to a town five miles distant, whence with $10 borrowed money, wrenched by mental force from a shoemaker, she proceeds to ‘Frisco, spends her capital, fasts three days, refuses though hungry any work or job, save what she has set her heart upon, newspaper work, which at last she secures it at $6.00 a week then loses gains another place.

Then one day she throws down her pen and marches out of the office, determined to serve others no longer, she stands alone in the sleet and snow of the street, her sole capital 25 cents and her own self-reliance, and resolves to found a newspaper of her own. She goes home and the boarding housekeeper, suspicious of her early return, asks:

“Have you been discharged by the chief?” “No,” she answers, “I have discharged the chief.”

“Is your bread and butter assured?” he asks.

“My bread and butter are assured,” she answers.

“How?” he asks.

“I am going to found a paper and it is a success before it is born. Listen and I’ll read you my first editorial.”

Then she read him her editorial on “I”, and he sat listening to the burning enthusiasm and the ringing clarion tones of freedom and aggressiveness, till his soul was on fire and his face illuminated and he cried out: “I’ll gamble on you. I have $20,000 in the bank. You can draw on every dollar if you like.”

She refused, but asked him to wait for a short time for her board bill. Three days later when $7.00 came in, they danced with joy around the table till the dishes were scattered and broken. Then followed more subscriptions, donations, appreciation, larger hopes, plans, courage and success.

She conquered poverty by conquering fear, learning of, and trusting in herself and daring to say, “I can and I will.”

Planning

One great secret of success in life is careful, wise and prudent planning of our labors in advance. Perhaps in no one thing does the successful man surpass the unsuccessful more than in the ability to foresee the future, prepare and arrange his plans to meet its exigencies and to so direct his labors to avoid loss of time, money and energy, and make all his work bear directly on the attainment of his great purpose in life.

All great generals Caesar, Hannibal, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant have excelled in ability to lay out practical plans of campaign and, in a multitude of great battles, the victory has been won more largely by skillful, bold and decisive planning than by the use of superior force.

What is the chief thing in good Planning? We answer that the first essential is knowledge. Take the general about to engage the enemy’s forces in battle. What does he need especially for the formation of his plans of battle? Chiefly knowledge. He needs to know fully the forces arrayed against him; he needs to know accurately the forces at his command; he needs to know the weak and strong points of both armies ; he needs to know every foot of the ground over which the battle may rage; and, in short, the more complete and accurate his knowledge, the better plan of battle can he lay out and the greater his prospect of success.

The architect before building must know the nature of the site, quality of material, figure out the cost, take into account the element of time and weather, and, in short, build his structure completely in mind before he builds it in mortar, as the successful general must fight out in the mental arena his battle before he successfully fights the enemy.

So every young person in planning his life work needs, especially, knowledge. First, he needs to know himself, physically, intellectually and morally, his strength and weaknesses, his tastes, inclinations and special talents.

The next essential in successful planning is such a scheme as will recognize all the great facts and factors entering into the life. Every young man should study himself know his own ability, find out his own talent and special inclinations, and then lay out, as a general does his order of battle, as an architect does his building, his life plan.

A large class of young men seem to have formulated no plans, schemes, purposes, beyond the present and the immediate future.

Not long since I heard a distinguished man giving one great reason for his success and he had risen under very adverse influences from ignorance and poverty to wide knowledge and a position of great honor and power in these words:

“When as a country lad I entered college in my ‘teens, I laid out carefully in advance a course of five years in Arts and four following years in Theology. I was poor and had to earn my money during the vacations, by editorial work during the college year, and labored under great disadvantages in other respects. Yet my carefully matured plans I followed out through nine years without deviation, and if I have met with success in life it has been largely owing to my ability to plan my work carefully and then stick to my plans until I had completed them.”

The Right Use of Difficulties

There is no better test of character than a man’s treatment of difficulties. The coward shuns them; the lazy man tries to go around them; the idler dawdles in front of them, waiting like Micawber for something to turn up or some miracle to remove them; the baby-man waits for some friend to lift him over them ; but the manly man surmounts them.

There are two important questions for young men: How are we to think about our difficulties? How are we to treat our difficulties?

1. How are we to think about the difficulties we meet in life? This is a question of vast importance, for upon its correct solution depends largely our happiness and our success.

We should never look upon difficulties as misfortunes. They are often, and when rightly used, always among our greatest blessings. Difficulties encountered start the mind to active enterprise, develop the inventive genius, spur us to exertion, summon our resources and exercise them for growth and enlargement.

Difficulties are to young people what the wind is to the young oak nature’s method of causing us to lay hold more deeply on her strength and grow stronger fiber in our mental and moral being. Difficulties furnish us our grandest opportunities becoming, as they do, the great incentive and inspiration to our undeveloped forces. They call forth our reserve power. They are Heaven-ordained instrumentalities for awakening the slumbering powers within us to life and activity.

A young man with many difficulties in his way ought to thank God and take courage. He should spell the word d-i-f-f-i-c-u-l-t-i-e-s, but should pronounce it opportunities.

2. How are we to treat our difficulties?

First, we must face them squarely. Many of life’s difficulties are more imaginary than real. They dwindle to insignificance the moment we gaze resolutely upon them. Study them as carefully as you would an opponent in battle whom you are determined to conquer. Learn all you can from friend and foe about the difficulties you are encountering. Remember you are born to conquer, and resolve to be a victor. Let there be no shunning, no whining, no waiting, no sickly, babyish dependence on others. Your own right hand, your own strong heart, your own indomitable will these can give you the victory.

Take your difficulties as the athletes take their hard and rigid training with a welcome; and remember each difficulty conquered means more manly strength.

Read the history of the world’s greatest men and see how they conquered poverty, prejudice, and opposition; how they triumphed over bodily weakness (“out of weakness were made strong” through difficulties) ; how they overcame mental and moral deficiencies, and rose up giants from the contests and victors in the battle, and became men of whom the world was no* worthy, because they overcame difficulties.

Conquer your difficulties and you have conquered the world.

Self-Assertion as a Success Factor

Many a well-educated man of good address and ability fails to win a satisfactory position in life because he lacks self-assertion. He has a shrinking nature and abhors publicity; the thought of pushing himself forward is repugnant to him, and so he is left behind in the race by the hustling, stirring, vigorous people around him, many of whom do not possess one-tenth of his ability or natural advantages.

Many young people have a totally mistaken conception of the meaning of healthy aggressiveness. They frequently confound it with egotistic boastfulness, decry it as a lack of modesty, and consider it the sign of petty, vulgar soul. They think it unbecoming to try to make a good impression in regard to their own ability, and shrink from public gaze, believing that, if they work hard, even in retirement, they will come out all right.

As a matter of fact, however, in this competitive age, it is not only indispensable to have our mental storehouses well stocked with superior goods, but it is also necessary to advertise them, for even an inferior article, if well-advertised, will often sell rapidly, while a superior one without advertisement will sell at a dead loss.

No one sympathizes with the blatant, conceited, over-confident youth who has the list of his accomplishments and virtues at his tongue’s end, and inflicts them on any one he can induce to listen. He is the very opposite of the unassuming young man, who, while conscious of his power, makes no parade of it, but simply carries himself as if he knew his business thoroughly.

When questioned as to what he can do, a modesty self-assertive person does not give weak, hesitating answers, saying, “I think I can do that,” or “Perhaps I could do it,” creating a feeling of doubt not only in his own mind but also in that of his questioner, which undoubtedly acts to his disadvantage. He knows he can do certain things, and he says so with a confidence that carries conviction.

This is the sort of self-assertion or self-confidence that young men and women must cultivate if they would raise themselves to their full value. It is a quality as far removed from vulgar, shallow self-conceit as the calm exercise of conscious power is from charlatanism.

Thousands of young men and young women are occupying inferior positions today because of their over-humility, so to speak, or fear of seeming to put themselves forward. Many of them are conscious that they are much abler than the superintendents or managers over them, and are consequently dissatisfied, feeling that an injustice has been done them, because they have been passed over in favor of more aggressive workers. But they have only themselves to blame. They have been too modest to assert themselves or to assume responsibility when occasion has warranted, thinking that , in time their real ability would be discovered by their employers, and that they would be advanced accordingly. But a young man with vim and self-confidence, who courts responsibility, will attract the attention of those above him, and will be promoted when a retiring, self-effacing, but much abler youth who worked beside him is passed by. It is useless to say that merit ought to win under any circumstances the fact remains that there is very little chance for a young man, no matter what his ability, to forge ahead, if he lacks a just appreciation of himself and is destitute of that consciousness of power and willingness to assume responsibility which impresses his personality on others and opens the door to recognition of his merit. ‘Tis true, ‘tis pity, and pity ‘tis, ‘tis true” that modest worth that retires from the public gaze and works in secret, waiting to be discovered and to have prizes thrust upon it, waits in vain. The world moves too fast in this twentieth century to turn aside to seek out shrinking ability. We must all go to the world. We need not delude ourselves with the idea that it will come to us, no matter how able or meritorious we may be. While actual inability can never hope to hold its own, even though, through self-conceit and aggressive methods, it may succeed in pushing its way ahead for a time, it is equally true that shrinking, self-effacing ability rarely comes to its own. Success.