The Creative Mind and Success
Part 2 - Practial Applications
Page 23, Following Up a Thought
by Ernest Holmes
When we feel that we do have the right leading; when that something inside us tells us that we are led; then, no matter what it appears like, we must follow it up. Something beyond our intelligence is doing the thing through us and we must do nothing to contradict it.
Perhaps it will cause us to do something that seems to go contrary to the experience of the human race. This makes no difference. All advance in invention and all advance along any line has always gone ahead of what the experience of the human race thinks is possible. Great men are ones who get a vision and then go to work to make it come true, never looking to one side but with one-pointedness and calm determination, to the thing until it is accomplished.
It may take much patience and a great deal of faith, but the end is as sure as is the reality of a Supreme Being itself.
Never hesitate to trust in that inner understanding, never fear but it will be right. We are all in the midst of Supreme Intelligence; It presses against the doors of our thought, waiting to be known. We must be open to It at all times, ready to receive direction and to be guided into greater truths.
THE SINGLE STREAM OF THOUGHT
We are all in Mind and what we think into it is taken up and done unto us. This means that as we think it will be done. We cannot think one way one day and change our thought the next and hope to get the desired results. We must be very clear in our thought, sending out only such thoughts as we wish to see manifested in our lives.
Here is something worth remembering. Unless we are working with people who think as we do, we had better be working alone. One stream of thought, even though it may not be powerful, will do more for us than many powerful streams that are at variance with each other. This means, that, unless we are sure that we are working with people who harmonize, we would better work alone. Of course, we cannot retire from business simply because people do not agree with us, but what we can do is keep our thoughts to ourselves. We do not have to leave the world in order to control our thought; but we do have to learn that we can stay right in the world and still think just what we want to think, regardless of what others are thinking.
One single stream of thought, daily sent into Creative Mind will do wonders. Within a year, the person who will practice this will have completely changed his conditions of life.
The way to practice this is daily to spend some time in thinking and in mentally seeing just what is wanted; see the thing just as it wished and then affirm that this is now done. Try to feel that what has been stated is the truth.
Words and affirmations simply give shape to thought; they are not creative. Feeling is creative and the more feeling that is put into the word the greater the power it will have over conditions. In doing this we think of the condition only as an effect, something that follows what we think. It cannot help following our thought. This is the way that all creation comes into expression.
It is a great help to realize mentally that at all times a great stream of thought and power is operating through us; it is constantly going out into Mind, where it is taken up and acted upon. Our business is to keep that stream of thought just where we want it to be; to be ready at any time to act when the impulse comes into action. Our action must never be negative, it must always be affirmative, for we are dealing with something that cannot fail. We may fail to realize, but the power in itself is Infinite and cannot fail.
We are setting in motion in the Absolute a stream of thought that will never cease until it accomplishes its purpose. Try to feel this, be filled with a great joy as you feel that it is given to you to use this great and only power.
Keep the thought clear and never worry about the way that things seem to be going. Let go of all outer conditions when working in Mind, for there is where things are made, there creation is going on, and it is now making something for us. This must be believed as never believed before; it must be known as the great reality; it must be felt as the only Presence. There is no other way to obtain.
Though all the Infinite may want to give, yet we must take, and, as far as we are concerned, that taking is mental. Though people may laugh at this, even, that does not matter, "He laughs best who laughs last." We know in "What we believe," and that will be sufficient.