Chapter 1

Chapter 14,191 wordsPublic domain

Produced by Al Haines

THE HEART

The New Thought

WRITTEN BY

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

Associate Editor of "NEW THOUGHT."

ELEVENTH THOUSAND

PUBLISHED BY

THE PSYCHIC RESEARCH COMPANY

TEMPLE CHAMBERS

TEMPLE AVE., E.C.,

LONDON, ENG.

1903

THE PSYCHIC RESEARCH COMPANY.

Publishers' Preface

This book is noteworthy as an interpretation of "New Thought."

That which was vague, mystic, unreal, has become, in the hands of Mrs. Wilcox, a lovable philosophy of simplest construction.

The backbone of this philosophy is The Power of Right Thought.

Startling as are some of the tenets expressed, they are provably true here and now.

It is possible that the very simplicity of this book will encourage careless criticism from those who believe that genius and ambiguity are twin.

But Mrs. Wilcox is ever the voice of the people: what she says is practical; what she thinks is clear; what she feels is plain.

Let the people judge this book.

Contents:

Let the Past Go The Sowing of the Seed Old Clothes High Noon Obstacles Thought Force Opulence Eternity Morning Influences The Philosophy of Happiness A Worn Out Creed Common Sense Literature Optimism Preparation Dividends Royalty Heredity Invincibility Faces The Object of Life Wisdom Self-Conquest The Important Trifles Concentration Destiny Sympathy The Breath Generosity Woman's Opportunity Balance

THE HEART OF

THE NEW THOUGHT

Let the Past Go

Do not begin the new year by recounting to yourself or others all your losses and sorrows.

Let the past go.

Should some good friend present you with material for a lovely garment, would you insult her by throwing it aside and describing the beautiful garments you had worn out in past times?

The new year has given you the fabric for a fresh start in life, why dwell upon the events which have gone, the joys, blessings and advantages of the past!

Do not tell me it is too late to be successful or happy. Do not tell me you are sick or broken in spirit, the spirit cannot be sick or broken, because it is of God.

It is your mind which makes your body sick. Let the spirit assert itself and demand health and hope and happiness in this new year.

Forget the money you have lost, the mistakes you have made, the injuries you have received, the disappointments you have experienced.

Real sorrow, the sorrow which comes from the death of dear ones, or some great cross well borne, you need not forget. But think of these things as sent to enrich your nature, and to make you more human and sympathetic. You are missing them if you permit yourself instead to grow melancholy and irritable.

It is weak and unreasonable to imagine destiny has selected you for special suffering.

Sorrow is no respecter of persons. Say to yourself with the beginning of this year that you are going to consider all your troubles as an education for your mind and soul; and that out of the experiences which you have passed through you are going to build a noble and splendid character, and a successful career.

Do not tell me you are too old.

Age is all imagination. Ignore years and they will ignore you.

Eat moderately, and bathe freely in water as cold as nature's rainfall. Exercise thoroughly and regularly.

Be alive, from crown to toe. Breathe deeply, filling every cell of the lungs for at least five minutes, morning and night, and when you draw in long, full breaths, believe you are inhaling health, wisdom and success.

Anticipate good health. If it does not come at once, consider it a mere temporary delay, and continue to expect it.

Regard any physical ailment as a passing inconvenience, no more.

Never for an instant believe you are permanently ill or disabled.

The young men of France are studying alchemy, hoping to learn the secret of the transmutation of gold.

If you will study your own spirit and its limitless powers, you will gain a greater secret than any alchemist ever held; a secret which shall give you whatever you desire.

Think of your body as the silver jewel box, your mind as the silk lining, your spirit as the gem. Keep the box burnished and clear of dust, but remember always that the jewel within is the precious part of it.

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious year lies before you! In a year you can regain health, fortune, restfulness, happiness!

Push on! Achieve, achieve!

The Sowing of the Seed

When you start in the "New Thought" do not expect sudden illumination. Do not imagine that you are to become perfectly well, perfectly cheerful, successful, and a healer, in a few days.

Remember all growth is slow.

Mushrooms spring up in a night, but oaks grow with deliberation and endure for centuries.

Mental and spiritual power must be gained by degrees.

If you attained maturity before you entered this field of "New Thought" it is folly to suppose a complete transformation of your whole being will take place in a week--a month--or a year.

All you can reasonably look for is a gradual improvement, just as you might do if you were attempting to take up music or a science.

The New Thought is a science, the Science of Right Thinking. But the brain cells which have been shaped by the old thoughts of despondency and fear, cannot all at once be reformed.

It will be a case of "Try, try again."

Make your daily assertions, "I am love, health, wisdom, cheerfulness, power for good, prosperity, success, usefulness, opulence."

Never fail to assert these things at least twice a day; twenty times is better. But if you do not attain to all immediately, if your life does not at once exemplify your words, let it not discourage you.

The saying of the words is the watering of the seeds.

After a time they will begin to sprout, after a longer time to cover the barren earth with grain, after a still longer time to yield a harvest.

If you have been accustomed to feeling prejudices and dislikes easily, you will not all at once find it easy to illustrate your assertion, "I am love." If you have indulged yourself in thoughts of disease, the old aches and pains will intrude even while you say "I am health!"

If you have groveled in fear and a belief that you were born to poverty and failure, courage and success and opulence will be of slow growth. Yet they will grow and materialize, as surely as you insist and persist.

Declare they are yours, right in the face of the worst disasters. There is nothing so confuses and flustrates misfortune as to stare it down with hopeful unflinching eyes.

If you waken some morning in the depths of despondency and gloom, do not say to yourself:

"I may as well give up this effort to adopt the New Thought--I have made a failure of it evidently----." Instead sit down quietly, and assert calmly that you are cheerfulness, hope, courage, faith and success.

Realize that your despondency is only temporary; an old habit, which is reasserting itself, but over which you will gradually gain the ascendency. Then go forth into the world and busy yourself in some useful occupation, and before you know it is on the way, hope will creep into your heart, and the gray cloud will lift from your mind. Physical pains will loosen their hold, and conditions of poverty will change to prosperity.

Your mind is your own to educate and direct.

You can do it by the aid of the Spirit, but you must be satisfied to work slowly.

Be patient and persistent.

Old Clothes

As you go over your wardrobe in the spring or fall, do not keep any old, useless, or even questionable, garments, for "fear you might need them another year."

Give them to the ragman, or send them to the county or city poor house. There is nothing that will keep you in a rut of shabbiness more than clinging to old clothes.

It is useless to say that you cannot afford new garments.

It is because you have harped upon this idea that you are still in straitened circumstances.

You believe neither in God or yourself.

Possibly you were brought up to think yourself a mere worm of earth, born to poverty and sorrow.

If you were, it will of course require a continued effort to train your mind to the new thought, the thought of your divine inheritance of all God's vast universe of wealth.

But you can do it.

Begin by giving away your old clothes. There may be people, poor relations, or some struggling mother of half-clad children, to whom your old garments will seem like new raiment, and to whom they will bring hope and happiness.

As a rule, it is not well to give people your discarded clothing.

It has a tendency to lower their self-respect and to make them look to you, instead of to themselves, for support.

It all depends upon whom the people are and how you do it.

If you can find employment for them, and arouse their hope and self-confidence and ambition, it is better than carloads of clothing or furniture or provisions.

But little children, suffering from cold, or hard-working, over-taxed men and women, will not be harmed, and may be temporarily cheered and encouraged by your gifts.

No matter if you still need your frayed-out garments--do not keep them.

Your thoughts of poverty and trouble have impregnated them so that you will continue to produce the same despondent mind stuff while you wear these garments.

Get rid of them, and believe that you are to soon procure fresh, becoming raiment.

Rouse all your energies, and go straight ahead with that purpose in mind.

You will be surprised to find how soon the opportunity presents itself for you to obtain what you need.

There is new strength, repose of mind and inspiration in fresh apparel.

God gives Nature new garments every season. We are a part of Nature.

He gives us the qualities and the opportunities to obtain suitable covering for our changing needs, if we believe in the one, and use the other.

When I read of a wealthy man who boasts that he has worn one hat seven years, or a woman in affluent circumstances who has worn one bonnet for various seasons, I feel sorry for their ignorance and ashamed of their penuriousness.

Look at the apple-tree, with its delicate spring drapery, its luxurious summer foliage, its autumn richness of coloring, its winter draperies of white! Surely the Creator did not intend the tree to have more variety than man!

The tree trusts, and grows, and takes storm and sun as divinely sent, and believes in its right to new apparel, and it comes.

It will come to you if you do the same.

High Noon

Every woman who passes thirty ought to keep her brain, heart and mind alive and warm with human sympathy and emotion. She ought to interest herself in the lives of others, and make her friendship valuable to the young.

She should keep her body supple, and avoid losing the lines of grace: and she should select some study or work to occupy her spare hours and to lend a zest to the coming years. Every woman in the comfortable walks in life can find time for such a study. No woman of tact, charm, refinement and feeling need ever let her husband, unless she has married a clod, become indifferent or commonplace in his treatment of her. Man reflects to an astonishing degree woman's sentiments for him.

Keep sentiment alive in your own heart, madam, and in the heart of your husband. If he sees that other men admire you he will be more alert to the necessity of remaining your lover.

Take the happy, safe, medium path between a gray and a gay life by keeping it radiant and bright. Read and think and talk of cheerful, hopeful, interesting subjects. Avoid small gossip, and be careful in your criticism of neighbors. Sometimes we must criticise, but speak _to_ people whose faults you feel a word of counsel may amend, not _of_ them to others.

Make your life after it reaches its noon, glorious with sunlight, rich with harvests, and bright with color. Be alive in mind, heart and body. Be joyous without giddiness, loving without silliness, attractive without being flirtatious, attentive to others' needs without being officious, and instructive without too great a display of erudition.

Be a noble, loving, lovable woman.

It is never too late in life to make anew start. No matter how small a beginning may be, it is so much begun for a new incarnation if it is cut off here by death.

If I were one hundred years old, and in possession of my faculties, I would not hesitate to undertake a new enterprise which offered a hope of bettering my condition.

Thought is eternal in its effects, and every hopeful thought which enters the mind sets vibrations in motion, which shall help minds millions of miles distant and lives yet unborn.

It is folly to mourn over a failure to provide opportunities and luxuries for children. We have only to look at the children of the rich, to see how little enduring happiness money gives, and how seldom great advantages result in great characters. The majority of the really great people of the world, in all lines of achievement, have sprung from poverty. I do not mean from pauper homes, but from the homes where only the mere necessities of life could be obtained, and where early in their youth the children felt it necessary to go into the world and make their own way. Self-dependence, self-reliance, energy, ambition, were all developed in this way.

How rarely do we find these qualities in the children of wealth. How rarely do great philosophers, great statesman, great thinkers and great _characters_ develop from the wealthy classes.

Pauperism--infant labor--the wage-earning women--are all evils which ought to be abolished. But next to that evil I believe the worst thing possible for a human soul is to be born to wealth. It is an obstacle to greatness which few are strong enough to surmount, and it rarely results in happiness to the recipient.

Obstacles

However great the obstacles between you and your goal may be or have been, do not lay the blame of your failure upon them.

Other people have succeeded in overcoming just as great obstacles.

Remove such hindrances from the path for others, if you can, or tell them a way to go around. Even lead them a little distance and cheer them on.

But so far as you yourself are concerned, do not stop to excuse any delinquency or half-heartedness or defeat by the plea of circumstance or environment.

The great nature makes its own environment, and dominates circumstance.

It all depends upon the amount of force in your own soul.

While you apply this rule to yourself and make no scapegoat of "fate," you must have consideration for the weakness of others, and you must try and better the conditions of the world as you go along.

You are robust and possessed of all your limbs. You can mount over the great boulder which has fallen in the road to success, and go on your way to your goal all the stronger for the experience.

But behind you comes a one-legged man--a blind man--a man bowed to the earth with a heavy burden, which he cannot lay down.

It will require weeks, months, years of effort on their part to climb over that rock which you surmounted in a few hours.

So it is right and just for you to call other strong ones to your aid and roll the boulder away or blast it out of the path.

That is just exactly the way you should think of the present industrial conditions.

In spite of them, the strong, well-poised, earnest and determined soul can reach any desired success.

But there are boulders in the road which do not belong there, boulders which cause hundreds of the pilgrims who are lame or blind or burdened, to fall by the wayside and perish.

It is your duty to aid in removing these obstacles and in making the road a safe and clear thoroughfare for all who journey.

Do not sit down by the roadside and say you have been hindered by these difficulties, that is to confess yourself weak.

Do not mount over them and rush to your goal and say coldly to the throngs behind you, "Oh, everybody can climb over that rock who really tries--didn't I?" That is to announce yourself selfish and unsympathetic.

No doubt the lame, the blind and the burdened _could_ attain the goal despite the rocks if they were fired by a consciousness of the divine force within them; that consciousness can achieve _all things under all circumstances_.

But there will always be thousands of pilgrims toiling wearily toward the goal who have not come to this realization.

If there are unjust, unfair and unkind restrictions placed about them, see to it that you do all in your power to right what is wrong.

But never wait to attain your own success because of these restrictions or obstacles.

Believe absolutely in your own God-given power to overcome anything and everything.

Think of yourself as performing miracles with God's aid.

Desire success so intensely that you attract if as the magnet attracts the steel.

Help to adjust things as you go along, but never for a moment believe that the lack of adjustment can cause you to fail.

Thought Force

Your spirit and mine are both part of the stupendous cause. We have always been, and always will be. First in one form, then in another.

Every thought, word and deed is helping decide your next place in the Creator's magnificent universe. You will be beautiful or ugly, wise or ignorant, fortunate or unfortunate, according to what use you make of yourself here and now.

Unselfish thoughts, training your mind to desire only universal good, the cultivation of the highest attributes, such as love, honesty, gratitude, faith, reverence and good will, all mean a life of usefulness and happiness in another incarnation, as well as satisfaction and self-respect in this sphere.

Even if you escape the immediate results of the opposite course of action here, you must face the law of _cause and effect_ in the next state. It is inevitable. God, the maker of all things, does not change His laws. "As you sow you reap." "As a man thinketh so is he." There is no "revenge" in God's mind. He simply makes His laws, and we work our destinies for good or ill according to our adherence to them or violation of them.

Each one of us is a needed part of His great plan. Let each soul say: "He has need of me or I would not be. I am here to strengthen the plan." Remember that always in your most discouraged hours.

The Creator makes no mistakes.

There is a divine purpose in your being on earth. Think of yourself as necessary to the great design. It is an inspiring thought. And then consider the immensity of the universe and how accurately the Maker planned it all.

Do not associate with pessimists. If you are unfortunate enough to be the son or daughter, husband or wife of one, put cotton (either real or spiritual) in your ears, and shut out the poison words of discouragement and despondency.

No tie of blood or law should compel you to listen to what means discomfort and disaster to you.

Get out and away, into the society of optimistic people.

Before you go, insist on saying cheerful, hopeful and bright things, sowing the seed, as it were, in the mental ground behind you. But do not sit down to see it grow.

Never feel that it is your duty to stay closely and continuously in the atmosphere of the despondent.

You might as well think it your duty to stay in deep water with one who would not make the least effort to swim.

Get on shore and throw out a life-line, but do not remain and be dragged under.

If you find any one determined to talk failure and sickness and misfortune and disaster, walk away.

You would not permit the dearest person on earth to administer slow poison to you if you knew it. Then why think it your duty to take mental potions which paralyze your courage and kill your ambition?

Despondency is one phase of immorality. It is blasphemous and an insult to the Creator.

You are justified in avoiding the people who send you from their presence with less hope and force and strength to cope with life's problems than when you met them.

Do what you can to change their current of thought. But do not associate intimately with them until they have learned to keep silent--at least, if they cannot speak hopefully.

Learn how to walk, how to poise your body, how to breathe, how to hold your head, how to focus your mind on things of universal importance. Believe your tender, loving thoughts and wishes for good to all humanity have power to help the struggling souls of earth to rise to higher and better conditions. No matter how limited your sphere of action may seem to you and how small your town appears on the map, if you develop your mental and spiritual forces through _love thoughts_ you can be a power to move the world along. Rise up and realize your strength. Not only will you be more useful and happy, but you will grow more beautiful and keep your youth.

Opulence

Do not go through the world talking poverty and asking every one you deal with to show you special consideration because you are "poor" and "unfortunate."

If you do this with an idea of saving a few dollars here and there, you will always have to do it, because you are creating poverty conditions by your constant assertions.

It is a curious fact that the people who are always demanding consideration in money matters demand the best that is going at the same time.

I have known a woman to make a plea for cut prices in a boarding house because she was so poor, yet she wanted the sunniest room and the best location the house afforded.

It is the charity patients who make the most complaint of a physician's skill or a nurse's attention.

If you cannot afford to do certain things, or buy certain objects, don't. But when you decide you must, decide, too, that you will pay the price, and make no whining plea of poverty.

There are two extremes of people in the world, one as distasteful as the other. One is represented by the man who boasts of the costliness of every possession, and invites the whole world to behold his opulence and expenditure.

His clothes, his house, his servants, his habits, seem no different to the observer from his neighbor's, yet, according to his story, they cost ten times the amount.

The other extreme is the man who dresses well, lives well, enjoys all the comforts and pleasures of his associates, yet talks poverty continually, and expects the entire community to show him consideration in consequence.

Another thing to avoid is the role of the chronically injured person.

We all know him.

He has a continual grievance. He has been cheated, abused, wronged, insulted, disappointed and deceived. We wonder how or why he has managed to exist, as we listen to the story of his troubles.

No one ever treats him fairly, either in business or social life. Everybody is ungrateful, unkind, selfish, and he could not be made to believe that these experiences were of his own making.

All of us meet with occasional blows from fate, in the form of insults, or ingratitude, or trickery from an unexpected source.

But if we get nothing else but those disappointing experiences from life, we may rest assured the fault lies somewhere in ourselves.

We are not sending out the right kind of mental stuff, or we would get better returns.

You never can tell what your thoughts will do In bringing you hate or love, For thoughts are things, and their airy wings Are swift as a carrier dove. They follow the law of the universe-- Each thing must create its kind, And they speed o'er the track to bring you back Whatever went out from your mind.

In the main, we must of necessity get from humanity what we give to it. If we question our ability to win friends or love, people will also question it.