Think & Create

Whether you change your vocation or not, your actions for the present must be those pertaining to the business in which you are now engaged.

You can get into the business you want by making constructive use of the business you are already established in –by doing your daily work in the certain way.

And insofar as your business consists in dealing with other people, whether personally or by letter, the key thought of all your efforts must be to convey to their minds the impression of increase.

Increase is what all men and all women are seeking; it is the urge of the formless intelligence within them seeking fuller expression.

The desire for increase is inherent in all nature; it is the fundamental impulse of the universe. All human activities are based on the desire for increase. People are seeking more food, more clothes, better shelter, more luxury, more beauty, more knowledge, more pleasure –increase in something, more life.

Every living thing is under this necessity for continuous advancement; where increase of life ceases, dissolution and death set in at once.

Man instinctively knows this, and therefore he is forever seeking more. This law of perpetual increase is set forth by Jesus in the parable of the talents: Only those who gain more retain any; from him who has not shall be taken away even that which he has.

The normal desire for increased wealth is not an evil or a reprehensible thing. It is simply the desire for more abundant life. It is aspiration.

And because it is the deepest instinct of their natures, all men and women are attracted to those who can give them more of the means of life.

In following the certain way as described in the foregoing pages, you are getting continuous in-crease for yourself, and you are giving it to all with whom you deal.

You are a creative center from which increase is given off to all.

Be sure of this, and convey assurance of the fact to every man, woman, and child with whom you come in contact. No matter how small the transaction, even if it be only the selling of a stick of candy to a little child, put into it the thought of increase, and make sure that the customer is impressed with the thought.

Convey the impression of advancement with everything you do, so that all people shall receive the impression that you are an “advancing personality,” and that you advance all who deal with you. Even to the people whom you meet in a social way –without any thought of business and to whom you do not try to sell anything –give the thought of increase.

You can convey this impression by holding…

You can convey this impression by holding the unshakable faith that you, yourself, are in the way of increase and by letting this faith inspire, fill, and permeate every action.

Do everything that you do in the firm conviction that you are an advancing personality and that you are giving advancement to everybody.

Feel that you are getting rich, and that in so doing you are making others rich and conferring benefits on all.

Do not boast or brag of your success or talk about it unnecessarily; true faith is never boastful.

Wherever you find a boastful person, you find one who is secretly doubtful and afraid. Simply feel the faith, and let it work out in every transaction. Let every act and tone and look express the quiet assurance that you are getting rich –that you are already rich. Words will not be necessary to communicate this feeling to others. They will feel the sense of increase when in your presence, and will be attracted to you again.

You must so impress others that they will feel that in associating with you they will get increase for themselves. See that you give them a use value greater than the cash value you are taking from them.

Take an honest pride in doing this and let everybody know it, and you will have no lack of customers. People will go where they are given increase, and the supreme, which desires increase in all and which knows all, will move toward you men and women who have never heard of you. Your business will increase rapidly, and you will be surprised at the unexpected benefits which will come to you. You will be able from day to day to make larger combinations, secure greater advantages, and to go on into a more congenial vocation if you desire to do so.

But doing thing all this, you must never lose sight of your vision of what you want or your faith and purpose to get what you want.

Let me here give you another word of caution in regard to motives: Beware of the insidious temptation to seek for power over other people.

Nothing is so pleasant to the unformed or partially developed mind as the exercise of power or dominion over others. The desire to rule for selfish gratification has been the curse of the world. For countless ages kings and lords have drenched the earth with blood in their battles to extend their do-minions -not to seek more life for all, but to get more power for themselves.

Today, the main motive in the business and industrial world is the same: Men marshal their armies of dollars and lay waste the lives and hearts of millions in the same mad scramble for power over others. Commercial kings, like political kings, are inspired by the lust for power.

Look out for the temptation to seek for authority…

Look out for the temptation to seek for authority, to become a “master,” to be considered as one who is above the common herd, to impress others by lavish display, and so on.

The mind that seeks for mastery over others is the competitive mind, and the competitive mind is not the creative one. In order to master your environment and your destiny, it is not at all necessary that you should rule over your fellow men, and, indeed, when you fall into the world’s struggle for the high places, you begin to be conquered by fate and environment and your getting rich becomes a matter of chance and speculation.

Beware of the competitive mind! No better statement of the principle of creative action can be formulated than the favorite declaration of the late “Golden Rule” Jones of Toledo: “What I want for myself, I want for everybody.”

kennethg Life The Science Of Getting Rich

Success, in any particular business, depends for one thing upon your possessing, in a well-developed state, the faculties required in that business.

Without good musical faculty no one can succeed as a teacher of music. Without well-developed mechanical faculties no one can achieve great success in any

of the mechanical trades. Without tact and the commercial faculties no one can succeed in mercantile pursuits. But to possess in a well-developed state the faculties required in your particular vocation does not insure getting rich. There are musicians who have remarkable talent, and who yet remain poor. There are blacksmiths, carpenters, and so on who have excellent mechanical ability, but who do not get rich. And there are merchants with good faculties for dealing with people who nevertheless fail.

The different faculties are tools. It is essential to have good tools, but it is also essential that the tools should be used in the right way. One man can take a sharp saw, a square, a good plane, and so on, and build a handsome article of furniture. Another man can take the same tools and set to work to duplicate the article, but his production will be a botch. He does not know how to use good tools in a successful way.

The various faculties of your mind are the tools with which you must do the work which is to make you rich. So it will be easier for you to succeed if you get into a business for which you are well equipped with mental tools.

Generally speaking, you will do best in that business which will use your strongest faculties –the one for which you are naturally “best fitted.” But there are limitations to this statement also. No one should regard his vocation as being irrevocably fixed by the tendencies with which he was born.

You can get rich in ANY business, for if you have not the right talent, you can develop that talent. It merely means that you will have to make your tools as you go along, instead of confining yourself to the use of those with which you were born. It will be EASIER for you to succeed in a vocation for which you already have the talents in a well-developed state;, but you CAN succeed in any vocation, for you can develop any rudimentary talent, and there is no talent of which you have not at least the rudiment.

You will get rich most easily in terms of effort, if you do that for which you are best fitted, but you will get rich most satisfactorily if you do that which you WANT to do.

Doing what you want to do is life…

Doing what you want to do is life, and there is no real satisfaction in living if we are compelled to be forever doing something which we do not like to do and can never do what we want to do. And it is certain that you can do what you want to do. The desire to do it is proof that you have within you the power which can do it.

Desire is a manifestation of power.

The desire to play music is the power which can play music seeking expression and development. The desire to invent mechanical devices is the mechanical talent seeking expression and development.

Where there is no power, either developed or undeveloped, to do a thing, there is never any desire to do that thing, and where there is strong desire to do a thing, it is certain proof that the power to do it is strong and only requires to be developed and applied in the right way.

All other things being equal, it is best to select the business for which you have the best developed talent, but if you have a strong desire to engage in any particular line of work, you should select that work as the ultimate end at which you aim.

You can do what you want to do, and it is your right and privilege to follow the business or avocation which will be most congenial and pleasant. You are not obliged to do what you do not like to do, and should not do it except as a means to bring you to the doing of the thing you want to do.

If there are past mistakes whose consequences have placed you in an undesirable business or environment, you may be obliged for some time to do what you do not like to do, but you can make the doing of it pleasant by knowing that it is making it possible for you to come to the doing of what you want to do.

If you feel that you are not in the right vocation, do not act too hastily in trying to get into another one. The best way, generally, to change business or environment is by growth.

Do not be afraid to make a sudden and radical change if the opportunity is presented and you feel after careful consideration that it is the right opportunity, but never take sudden or radical action when you are in doubt as to the wisdom of doing so.

There is never any hurry on the creative plane, and there is no lack of opportunity.

When you get out of the competitive mind you will understand that you never need to act hastily. No one else is going to beat you to the thing you want to do; there is enough for all. If one space is taken, another and a better one will be opened for you a little farther on; there is plenty of time. When you are in doubt, wait. Fall back on the contemplation of your vision, and increase your faith and purpose. And by all means, in times of doubt and indecision, cultivate gratitude.

A day or two spent in contemplating the vision…

A day or two spent in contemplating the vision of what you want and in earnest thanksgiving that you are getting it will bring your mind into such close relationship with the supreme that you will make no mistake when you do act.

There is a mind which knows all there is to know, and you can come into close unity with this mind by faith and the purpose to advance in life, if you have deep gratitude.

Mistakes come from acting hastily or from acting in fear or doubt or in forgetfulness of the right motive, which is more life to all, and less to none.

As you go on in the certain way, opportunities will come to you in increasing number, and you will need to be very steady in your faith and purpose, and to keep in close touch with the supreme mind by reverent gratitude.

Do all that you can do in a perfect manner every day, but do it without haste, worry, or fear. Go as fast as you can, but never hurry.

Remember that in the moment you begin to hurry you cease to be a creator and become a competitor. You drop back upon the old plane again.

Whenever you find yourself hurrying, call a halt. Fix your attention on the mental image of the thing you want and begin to give thanks that you are getting it. The exercise of GRATITUDE will never fail to strengthen your faith and renew your purpose.

kennethg Life The Science Of Getting Rich

You must use your thought as directed in previous chapters and begin to do what you can do where you are, and you must do all that you can do where you are.

You can advance only by being larger than your present place, and no one is larger than his present place who leaves undone any of the work pertaining to that place.

The world is advanced only by those who more than fill their present places.

If no one quite filled his present place, you can see that there must be a going backward in every-thing. Those who do not quite fill their present places are dead weight upon society, government, commerce, and industry. They must be carried along by others at a great expense. The progress of the world is slowed only by those who do not fill the places they are holding. They belong to a former age and their tendency is toward degeneration. No society could advance if everyone was smaller than his place; social evolution is guided by the law of physical and mental evolution.

In the animal world, evolution is caused by excess of life. When an organism has more life than can be expressed in the functions of its own plane, it develops the organs of a higher plane, and a new species is originated.

There never would have been new species had there not been organisms which more than filled their places. The law is exactly the same for you: Your getting rich depends upon your applying this principle to your own affairs.

Every day is either a successful day or a day of failure, and it is the successful days which get you what you want. If every day is a failure you can never get rich, while if every day is a success, you cannot fail to get rich.

If there is something that may be done today and you do not do it, you have failed insofar as that thing is concerned –and the consequences may be more disastrous than you imagine.

You cannot foresee the results of even the most trivial act. You do not know the workings of all the forces that have been set moving in your behalf. Much may be depending on your doing some simple act, and it may be the very thing which is to open the door of opportunity to very great possibilities. You can never know all the combinations which supreme intelligence is making for you in the world of things and of human affairs. Your neglect or failure to do some small thing may cause a long delay in getting what you want.

Do, every day, ALL that can be done that day…

Do, every day, ALL that can be done that day.

There is, however, a limitation or qualification of the above that you must take into account.

You are not to overwork, nor to rush blindly into your business in the effort to do the greatest possible number of things in the shortest possible time.

You are not to try to do tomorrow’s work today, nor to do a week’s work in a day. It is really not the number of things you do, but the EFFICIENCY of each separate action that counts.

Every act is, in itself, either a success or a failure. Every act is, in itself, either effective and efficient or ineffective and inefficient. Every inefficient act is a failure, and if you spend your life in doing inefficient acts, your whole life

will be a failure. The more things you do, the worse for you –if all your acts are inefficient ones.

On the other hand, every efficient act is a success in itself, and if every act of your life is an efficient one, your whole life must be a success.

The cause of failure is doing too many things in an inefficient manner and not doing enough things in an efficient manner.

You will see that it is a self-evident proposition that if you do not do any inefficient acts and if you do a sufficient number of efficient acts, you will become rich. If,
now, it is possible for you to make each act an efficient one, you see again that the getting of riches is reduced to an exact science, like mathematics.

The matter turns, then, on the question of whether you can make each separate act a success in itself. And this you can certainly do. You can make each act a success, because ALL power is working with you, and ALL power cannot fail.

Power is at your service, and to make each act efficient you have only to put power into it.

Every action is either strong or weak, and when every action is strong, you are acting in the certain way which will make you rich.

Every act can be made strong and efficient by holding your vision while you are doing it and putting the whole power of your FAITH and PURPOSE into it.

It is at this point that the people who separate mental power from personal action fail. They use the power of mind in one place and at one time, and they act in another way in another place and at another time. So their acts are not successful in themselves; too many of them are inefficient. But if ALL power goes into every act, no matter how commonplace, every act will be a success in itself. And since it is the nature of things that every success opens the way to other successes, your progress toward what you want and the progress of what you want toward you, will become increasingly rapid.

Remember that successful action is cumulative…

Remember that successful action is cumulative in its results. Since the desire for more life is inherent in all things, when a person begins to move toward larger life, more things attach themselves to him, and the influence of his desire is multiplied.

Do, every day, all that you can do that day, and do each act in an efficient manner.

In saying that you must hold your vision while you are doing each act, however trivial or common-place, I do not mean to say that it is necessary at all times to see the vision distinctly to its smallest details. It should be the work of your leisure hours to use your imagination on the details of your vision and to contemplate them until they are firmly fixed upon memory. If you wish speedy results, spend practically all your spare time in this practice.

By continuous contemplation you will get the picture of what you want –even to the smallest details –so firmly fixed upon your mind and so completely transferred to the mind of formless sub-stance, that in your working hours you need only to mentally refer to the picture to stimulate your faith and purpose and cause your best effort to be put forth.

Contemplate your picture in your leisure hours until your consciousness is so full of it that you can grasp it instantly. You will become so enthused with its bright promises that the mere thought of it will call forth the strongest energies of your whole being.

Let us again repeat our syllabus, and by slightly changing the closing statements bring it to the point we have now reached.

There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe.

A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.

A person can form things in his thought, and, by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.

In order to do this, a person must pass from the competitive to the creative mind. He must form a clear mental picture of the things he wants, and must do –with faith and purpose –all that can be done each day, doing each separate thing in an efficient manner.

kennethg Life The Science Of Getting Rich

Thought is the creative power or the impelling force which causes the creative power to act. Thinking in a certain way will bring riches to you, but you must not rely upon thought alone, paying no attention to personal action. That is the rock upon which many otherwise scientific thinkers meet shipwreck –the failure to connect thought with personal action.

We have not yet reached the stage of development, even supposing such a stage to be possible, in which a person can create directly from formless substance without nature’s processes or the work of human hands. A person must not only think, but his personal action must supplement his thought.

By thought you can cause the gold in the hearts of the mountains to be impelled toward you, but it will not mine itself, refine itself, coin itself into double eagles, and come rolling along the roads, seeking its way into your pocket.

Under the impelling power of the supreme spirit, people’s affairs will be so ordered that someone will be led to mine the gold for you. Other people’s business transactions will be so directed that the gold will be brought toward you. And you must so arrange your own business affairs that you may be able to receive it when it comes to you. Your thought makes all things, animate and inanimate, work to bring you what you want, but your personal activity must be such that you can rightly receive what you want when it reaches you. You are not to take it as charity, nor to steal it. You must give every man more in use value than he gives you in cash value.

The scientific use of thought consists in forming a clear and distinct mental image of what you want, in holding fast to your purpose to get what you want, and in realizing with grateful faith that you do get what you want.

Do not try to “project” your thought in any mysterious or occult way, with the idea of having it go out and do things for you. That is wasted effort and will weaken your power to think with sanity.

The action of thought in getting rich is fully explained in the preceding chapters: Your faith and purpose positively impress your vision upon formless substance, which has the same desire for more life that you have, and this vision, received from you, sets all the creative forces at work in and through their regular channels of action, but directed toward you.

It is not your part to guide or supervise the creative process. All you have to do with that is to retain your vision, stick to your purpose, and maintain your faith and gratitude.

But you must act in a certain way…

But you must act in a certain way, so that you can appropriate what is yours when it comes to you and so that you can meet the things you have in your picture and put them in their proper places as they arrive.

You can really see the truth of this. When things reach you, they will be in the hands of others, who will ask an equivalent for them. And you can only get what is yours by giving the other person what is rightfully his.

Your pocketbook is not going to be transformed into a Fortunata’s purse, which shall be always full of money without effort on your part.

This is the crucial point in the science of getting rich –right here, where thought and personal action must be combined. There are very many people who, consciously or unconsciously, set the creative forces in action by the strength and persistence of their desires, but who remain poor because they do not provide for the reception of the thing they want when it comes.

By thought, the thing you want is brought to you. By action, you receive it.

Whatever your action is to be, it is evident that you must act NOW. You cannot act in the past, and it is essential to the clearness of your mental vision that you dismiss the past from your mind. You cannot act in the future, for the future is not here yet. And you cannot tell how you will want to act in any future contingency until that contingency has arrived.

Because you are not in the right business or the right environment now, do not think that you must postpone action until you get into the right business or environment. And do not spend time in the present taking thought as to the best course in possible future emergencies; have faith in your ability to meet any emergency when it arrives.

If you act in the present with your mind on the future, your present action will be with a divided mind, and will not be effective.

Put your whole mind into present action.

Do not give your creative impulse to original substance, and then sit down and wait for results. If you do, you will never get them. Act now. There is never any time but now, and there never will be any time but now. If you are ever to begin to make ready for the reception of what you want, you must begin NOW.

And your action, whatever it is, must most likely be in your present business or employment, and must be upon the persons and things in your present environment.

You cannot act where you are not, you cannot act where you have been, and you cannot act where you are going to be. You can act only where you are.

Do not bother as to whether yesterday’s work…

Do not bother as to whether yesterday’s work was well done or ill done; do today’s work well.

Do not try to do tomorrow’s work now; there will be plenty of time to do that when you get to it.

Do not try, by occult or mystical means, to act on people or things that are out of your reach.

Do not wait for a change of environment, before you act; get a change of environment by action.

You can so act upon the environment in which you are now, as to cause yourself to be transferred to a better environment.

Hold with faith and purpose the vision of yourself in the better environment, but act upon your present environment with all your heart, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.

Do not spend any time in day dreaming or castle building; hold to the one vision of what you want, and act NOW.

Do not cast about, seeking some new thing to do or some strange, unusual, or remarkable action to perform as a first step toward getting rich. It is probable that your actions, at least for some time to come, will be the same ones you have been performing for some time past, but you are to begin now to perform these actions in the certain way, which will surely make you rich.

If you are engaged in some business, and feel that it is not the right one for you, do not wait until you get into the right business before you begin to act.

Do not feel discouraged or sit down and lament because you are misplaced. No one is so misplaced that he cannot find the right place, and no one is so involved in the wrong business that he cannot get into the right business.

Hold the vision of yourself in the right business, with the purpose to get into it and the faith that you will get into it and are getting into it, but ACT in your present business. Use your present business as the means of getting a better one, and use your present environment as the means of getting into a better one. Your vision of the right business, if held with faith and purpose, will cause the supreme power to move the right business toward you. And your action, if performed in the certain way, will cause you to move toward the business.

If you are an employee or wage earner and feel that you must change places in order to get what you want, do not “project” your thought into space and rely upon it to get you another job. It will probably fail to do so.

Hold the vision of yourself in the job you want…

Hold the vision of yourself in the job you want while you ACT with faith and purpose on the job you have, and you will certainly get the job you want.

Your vision and faith will set the creative force in motion to bring it toward you, and your action will cause the forces in your own environment to move you toward the place you want. In closing this chapter, we will add another statement to our syllabus:

There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe.

A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.

A person can form things in his thought, and, by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.

In order to do this, a person must pass from the competitive to the creative mind; he must form a clear mental picture of the things he wants, and hold this picture in his thoughts with the fixed PURPOSE to get what he wants, and the unwavering FAITH that he does get what he wants, closing his mind to all that may tend to shake his purpose, dim his vision, or quench his faith.

So that he may receive what he wants when it comes, a person must act NOW upon the people and things in his present environment.

kennethg Life The Science Of Getting Rich

You cannot retain a true and clear vision of wealth if you are constantly turning your attention to opposing pictures, whether they be external or imaginary.

Do not tell of your past troubles of a financial nature, if you have had them. Do not think of them at all. Do not tell of the poverty of your parents or the hardships of your early life. To do any of these things is to mentally class yourself with the poor for the time being, and it will certainly check the movement of things in your direction. Put poverty and all things that pertain to poverty completely behind you.

You have accepted a certain theory of the universe as being correct, and are resting all your hopes of happiness on its being correct. What can you gain by giving heed to conflicting theories?

Do not read books which tell you that the world is soon coming to an end, and do not read the writing of muckrakers and pessimistic philosophers who tell you that it is going to the devil. The world is not going to the devil; it is going to God. It is a wonderful becoming.

True, there may be a good many things in existing conditions which are disagreeable, but what is the use of studying them when they are certainly passing away and when the study of them only tends to slow their passing and keep them with us? Why give time and attention to things which are being removed by evolutionary growth, when you can hasten their removal only by promoting the evolutionary growth as far as your part of it goes?

No matter how horrible in seeming may be the conditions in certain countries, sections, or places, you waste your time and destroy your own chances by dwelling on them.

You should interest yourself in the world’s becoming rich.

Think of the riches the world is coming into instead of the poverty it is growing out of, and bear in mind that the only way in which you can assist the world in growing rich is by growing rich yourself through the creative method, not the competitive one.

Give your attention wholly to riches. Do not focus on poverty. Whenever you think or speak of those who are poor, think and speak of them as those who are becoming rich, as those who are to be congratulated rather than pitied. Then they and others will catch the inspiration, and begin to search for the way out.

Because I say that you are to give your whole time and mind and thought to riches, it does not follow that you are to be sordid or mean.

To become really rich is the noblest aim…

To become really rich is the noblest aim you can have in life, for it includes everything else.

On the competitive plane, the struggle to get rich is a Godless scramble for power over others, but when we come into the creative mind, all this is changed. All that is possible in the way of greatness, of service and lofty endeavor, comes by way of getting rich, because all is made possible by the use of things. You can aim at nothing so great or noble, I repeat, as to become rich, and you must fix your attention upon your mental picture of wealth to the exclusion of all that may tend to dim or obscure the vision.

Some people remain in poverty because they are ignorant of the fact that there is wealth for them, and these can best be taught by showing them the way to affluence in your own person and practice.

Others are poor because, while they feel that there is a way out, they are too intellectually indolent to put forth the mental effort necessary to find that way and travel it. For these, the very best thing you can do is to arouse their desire by showing them the happiness that comes from being rightly rich.

Others still are poor because, while they have some notion of science, they have become so swamped and lost in the maze of theories that they do not know which road to take. They try a mixture of many systems and fail in all. For these, again, the very best thing to do is to show the right way in your own person and practice. An ounce of doing things is worth a pound of theorizing.

The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself.

You can serve God and humanity in no more effective way than by getting rich; that is, if you get rich by the creative method and not by the competitive one.

Another thing. We assert that this book gives in detail the principles of the science of getting rich, and if that is true, you do not need to read any other book upon the subject. This may sound narrow and egotistical, but consider: There is no more scientific method of computation in mathematics than by addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; no other method is possible. There can be but one shortest distance between two points. There is only one way to think scientifically, and that is to think in the way that leads by the most direct and simple route to the goal. No one has yet formulated a briefer or less complex “system” than the one set forth here. It has been stripped of all non-essentials. When you commence on this, lay all others aside. Put them out of your mind altogether.

Read this book every day. Keep it with you…

Read this book every day. Keep it with you. Commit it to memory, and do not think about other “systems” and theories. If you do, you will begin to have doubts and to be uncertain and wavering in your thought, and then you will begin to make failures. After you have made good and become rich, you may study other systems as much as you please.

And read only the most optimistic comments on the world’s news –those in harmony with your picture. Also, do not dabble in theosophy, spiritualism, or kindred studies. Perhaps the dead still live and are near, but if they are, let them alone; mind your own business.

Wherever the spirits of the dead may be, they have their own work to do, and we have no right to interfere with them. We cannot help them, and it is very doubtful whether they can help us, or whether we have any right to trespass upon their time if they can. Let the dead and the hereafter alone, and solve your own problem: Get rich. If you begin to mix with the occult, you will start mental crosscurrents which will surely bring your hopes to shipwreck.

Now, this and the preceding chapters have brought us to the following statement of basic facts:

There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe.

A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.

A person can form things in his thought, and, by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.

In order to do this, a person must pass from the competitive to the creative mind; he must form a clear mental picture of the things he wants, and hold this picture in his thoughts with the fixed PURPOSE to get what he wants, and the unwavering FAITH that he does get what he wants, closing his mind against all that may tend to shake his purpose, dim his vision, or quench his faith.

And in addition to all this, we shall now see that he must live and act in a certain way.

kennethg Life The Science Of Getting Rich

To set about getting rich in a scientific way, you do not try to apply your will power to any-thing outside of yourself.

You have no right to do so, anyway. It is wrong to apply your will to other men and women in order to get them to do what you wish done.

It is as flagrantly wrong to coerce people by mental power as it is to coerce them by physical power. If compelling people by physical force to do things for you reduces them to slavery, compelling them by mental means accomplishes exactly the same thing; the only difference is in methods. If taking things from people by physical force is robbery, them taking things by mental force is robbery also. There is no difference in principle.

You have no right to use your will power upon another person, even “for his own good,” for you do not know what is for his good. The science of getting rich does not require you to apply power or force to any other person, in any way whatsoever. There is not the slightest necessity for doing so. Indeed, any attempt to use your will upon others will only tend to defeat your purpose.

You do not need to apply your will to things in order to compel them to come to you. That would simply be trying to coerce God and would be foolish and useless.

You do not have to try to compel God to give you good things, any more than you have to use your will power to make the sun rise.

You do not have to use your will power to conquer an unfriendly Deity, or to make stubborn and rebellious forces do your bidding. Substance is friendly to you, and is more anxious to give you what you want than you are to get it.

To get rich, you need only to use your will power upon yourself.

When you know what to think and do, then you must use your will to compel yourself to think and do the right things. That is the legitimate use of the will in getting what you want –to use it in holding yourself to the right course.

Use your will to keep yourself thinking and acting in the certain way.

Do not try to project your will, or your thoughts, or your mind out into space to “act” on things or

people. Keep your mind at home. It can accomplish more there than elsewhere.

Use your mind to form a mental image of what you want and to hold that vision with faith and purpose. And use your will to keep your mind working in the right way.

The more steady and continuous your faith…

The more steady and continuous your faith and purpose, the more rapidly you will get rich be-cause you will make only POSITIVE impressions upon substance, and you will not neutralize or offset them by negative impressions.

The picture of your desires, held with faith and purpose, is taken up by the formless, and permeates it to great distances –throughout the universe, for all we know.

As this impression spreads, all things are set moving toward its realization. Every living thing, every inanimate thing, and the things yet uncreated are stirred toward bringing into being that which you want. All force begins to be exerted in that direction. All things begin to move toward you. The minds of people everywhere are influenced toward doing the things necessary to the fulfilling of your desires, and they work for you, unconsciously.

But you can check all this by starting a negative impression in the formless substance. Doubt or unbelief is as certain to start a movement away from you as faith and purpose are to start one toward you. It is by not understanding this that most people make their failure. Every hour and moment you spend in giving heed to doubts and fears, every hour you spend in worry, every hour in which your soul is possessed by unbelief, sets a current away from you in the whole domain of intelligent substance. All the promises are unto them that believe, and unto them only.

Since belief is all important, it behooves you to guard your thoughts, and as your beliefs will be shaped to a very great extent by the things you observe and think about, it is important that you should carefully govern to what you give your attention.

And here the will comes into use, for it is by your will that you determine upon what things your attention shall be fixed.

If you want to become rich, you must not make a study of poverty.

Things are not brought into being by thinking about their opposites. Health is never to be attained by studying disease and thinking about disease; righteousness is not to be promoted by studying sin and thinking about sin; and no one ever got rich by studying poverty and thinking about poverty.

Medicine as a science of disease has increased disease; religion as a science of sin has promoted sin, and economics as a study of poverty will fill the world with wretchedness and want.

Do not talk about poverty, do not investigate it, or concern yourself with it. Never mind what its causes are; you have nothing to do with them.

What concerns you is the cure.

Do not spend your time in so-called charitable work or charity movements; most charity only tends to perpetuate the wretchedness it aims to eradicate. I do not say that you should be hard-hearted or unkind and refuse to hear the cry of need, but you must not try to eradicate poverty in any of the conventional ways. Put poverty behind you, and put all that pertains to it behind you, and “make good.”

Get rich. That is the best way you can help…

Get rich. That is the best way you can help the poor.

And you cannot hold the mental image which is to make you rich if you fill your mind with pictures of poverty and all its attendant ills. Do not read books or papers which give circumstantial accounts of the wretchedness of the tenement dwellers, of the horrors of child labor, and so on. Do not read anything which fills your mind with gloomy images of want and suffering.

You cannot help the poor in the least by knowing about these things, and the wide-spread knowledge of them does not tend at all to do away with poverty.

What tends to do away with poverty is not the getting of pictures of poverty into your mind, but getting pictures of wealth, abundance, and possibility into the minds of the poor.

You are not deserting the poor in their misery when you refuse to allow your mind to be filled with pictures of that misery.

Poverty can be done away with, not by increasing the number of well-to-do people who think about poverty, but by increasing the number of poor people who purpose with faith to get rich.

The poor do not need charity; they need inspiration. Charity only sends them a loaf of bread to keep them alive in their wretchedness, or gives them an entertainment to make them forget for an hour or two. But inspiration can cause them to rise out of their misery. If you want to help the poor, demonstrate to them that they can become

rich. Prove it by getting rich yourself.

The only way in which poverty will ever be banished from this world is by getting a large and constantly increasing number of people to practice the teachings of this book.

People must be taught to become rich by creation, not by competition.

Every person who becomes rich by competition knocks down the ladder by which he rises, and keeps others down, but every person who gets rich by creation opens a way for thousands to follow –and inspires them to do so.

You are not showing hardness of heart or an unfeeling disposition when you refuse to pity poverty, see poverty, read about poverty, or think or talk about it, or to listen to those who do talk about it. Use your will power to keep your mind OFF the subject of poverty and to keep it fixed with faith and purpose ON the vision of what you want and are creating.

kennethg Life The Science Of Getting Rich

Turn back to Chapter 6 and read again the story of the man who formed a mental image of his house and you will get a fair idea of the initial step toward getting rich. You must form a clear and definite mental picture of what you want. You cannot transmit an idea unless you have it yourself.

You must have it before you can give it, and many people fail to impress thinking substance because they have themselves only a vague and misty concept of the things they want to do, to have, or to become.

It is not enough that you should have a general desire for wealth “to do good with.” Everybody has that desire.

It is not enough that you should have a wish to travel, see things, live more, etc. Everybody has those desires also. If you were going to send a wireless message to a friend, you would not send the letters of the alphabet in their order and let him construct the message for himself, nor would you take words at random from the dictionary. You would send a coherent sentence, one which meant something.

When you try to impress your wants upon the thinking substance, remember that it must be done by a coherent statement. You must know what you want and be specific and definite. You can never get rich
or start the creative power into action by sending out unformed longings and vague desires.

Go over your desires just as the man I have described went over his house. See just what you want and get a clear mental picture of it as you wish it to look when you get it.

That clear mental picture you must have continually in mind. As the sailor has in mind the port toward which he is sailing the ship, you must keep your face toward it all the time. You must no more lose sight of it than the helmsman loses sight of the compass.

It is not necessary to take exercises in concentration, nor to set apart special times for prayer and affirmation, nor to “go into the silence,” nor to do occult stunts of any kind. Some of these things are well enough, but all you need is to know what you want and to want it badly enough so that it will stay in your thoughts.

Spend as much of your leisure time as you can in contemplating your picture. But no one needs to take exercises to concentrate his mind on a thing which he really wants. It is the things you do not really care about which require effort to fix your attention upon them.

And unless you really want to get rich…

And unless you really want to get rich, so that the desire is strong enough to hold your thoughts directed to the purpose as the magnetic pole holds the needle of the compass, it will hardly be worth-while for you to try to carry out the instructions given in this book.

The methods set forth here are for people whose desire for riches is strong enough to overcome mental laziness and the love of ease, and to make them work.

The more clear and definite you make your picture then, and the more you dwell upon it, bringing out all its delightful details, the stronger your desire will be. And the stronger your desire, the easier it will be to hold your mind fixed upon the picture of what you want.

Something more is necessary, however, than merely to see the picture clearly. If that is all you do, you are only a dreamer, and will have little or no power for accomplishment.

Behind your clear vision must be the purpose to realize it, to bring it out in tangible expression.

And behind this purpose must be an invincible and unwavering FAITH that the thing is already yours, that it is “at hand” and you have only to take possession of it.

Live in the new house, mentally, until it takes form around you physically. In the mental realm, enter at once into full enjoyment of the things you want.

“Whatsoever things ye ask for when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them,” said Jesus.

See the things you want as if they were actually around you all the time. See yourself as owning and using them. Make use of them in imagination just as you will use them when they are your tangible possessions. Dwell upon your mental picture until it is clear and distinct, and then take the mental attitude of ownership toward everything in that picture. Take possession of it, in mind, in the full faith that it is actually yours. Hold to this mental ownership. Do not waiver for an instant in the faith that it is real.

And remember what was said in a proceeding chapter about gratitude: Be as thankful for it all the time as you expect to be when it has taken form. The person who can sincerely thank God for the things which as yet he owns only in imagination has real faith. He will get rich. He will cause the creation of whatever he wants.

You do not need to pray repeatedly for things you want. It is not necessary to tell God about it every day.

Your part is to intelligently formulate your desire for the things which make for a larger life and to get these desire arranged into a coherent whole, and then to impress this whole desire upon the formless substance, which has the power and the will to bring you what you want.

You do not make this impression by repeating…

You do not make this impression by repeating strings of words; you make it by holding the vision with unshakable PURPOSE to attain it and with steadfast FAITH that you do attain it.

The answer to prayer is not according to your faith while you are talking, but according to your faith while you are working.

You cannot impress the mind of God by having a special Sabbath day set apart to tell him what you want, and then forgetting him during the rest of the week. You cannot impress him by having special hours to go into your closet and pray, if you then dismiss the matter from your mind until the hour of prayer comes again.

Oral prayer is well enough, and has its effect, especially upon yourself, in clarifying your vision and strengthening your faith, but it is not your oral petitions which get you what you want. In order to get rich you do not need a “sweet hour of prayer;” you need to “pray without ceasing.” And by prayer I mean holding steadily to your vision, with the purpose to cause its creation into solid form, and the faith that you are doing so.

“Believe that ye receive them.”

Once you have clearly formed your vision, the whole matter turns on receiving. When you have formed it, it is well to make an oral statement, addressing the supreme in gratitude. Then, from that moment on you must, in mind, receive what you ask for.

Live in the new house, wear the fine clothes, ride in the automobile, go on the journey, and confidently plan for greater journeys. Think and speak of all the things you have asked for in terms of actual present ownership. Imagine an environment and a financial condition exactly as you want them, and live all the time in that mental environment and financial condition until they take physical shape.

Mind, however, that you do not do this as a mere dreamer and castle builder. Hold to the FAITH that the imaginary is being realized and to your PURPOSE to realize it. Remember that it is faith and purpose in the use of the imagination which make the difference between the scientist and the dreamer.

And having learned this fact, it is here that you must learn the proper use of the will.

kennethg Life The Science Of Getting Rich