The Creative Mind and Success
Part 2 - Practial Applications
Page 25, Always Be Gathering
by Ernest Holmes
There is no reason why a person should ever stop. This does not mean that we should be miserly, trying to accumulate more and more to hold, but that our thought should so enlarge that it cannot help gathering more and more, even though, on the other hand, or with the other hand, we are distributing that which we gather. Indeed, the only reason for having is that we may give out of that which we have.
No matter what big thing happens to us we should still be expecting more and more. Even when we think that we have at last arrived; right at the moment when it seems as though life had given us all that we could stand; right here let it be but a beginning for still greater things.
No matter how large the picture that you hold in mind, make it larger. The reason why so many people come to the point where they stop is that they come to a point where they stop growing in their own minds. They come to a point where they can see no more, thinking that because they really done a big thing they should stop there. We must watch our thought for signs of inactivity. Nothing in the universe ever stops. Everything is built on a boundless basis, drawn from a limitless source, come forth from an Infinite sea of unmanifest life. We speak forth into this life and draw back from it all that we first think into it. Life is always limitless, and the only thing that limits us is our inability to conceive mentally, and we should draw more and more from that limitless source.
MENTAL LIKENESS
We can draw from the Infinite only as much as we first think into it. It is at this point that so many fail, thinking that all they need to do is to affirm what they want and it will follow. While it is true that affirmations have real power, it is also true that they have only that which we speak into them.
As we cannot speak a word that we do not know, so we cannot make an affirmation that we do not understand. We really affirm only that which we know to be true; we know that to be true which we have experienced within ourselves, although we may have heard or read that this or that thing is true, it is only where there is something within our own souls that corresponds or recognizes its truth, that it is true to us. This ought never to be lost sight of: we can effectively affirm only that which we know, and we know only that which we are. It is herein that we see the necessity of providing within a greater concept of life; a bigger idea of ourselves and a more expanded concept of the Universe in which we live, move and have our being. This is a matter of inner growth together with the enlarging of all lines of thought and activity.
If we want to do a thing that is really worth doing, we must mentally grow until we are that thing, which we want to see made flesh. This may take time, but we should be glad to use all the time necessary to our own development.
But few people in limitation have a mental likeness of plenty. This likeness must be provided. The thought must be large enough to cover the whole of the thing desired; a small thought will produce only a small thing. The very fact that all is mind proves this to be true. All is mind and, because it is, we can draw from that mind only that which we first think into it as a reality. We must become the thing that we want. We must see it, think it realize it, before the creative power of Mind can work it out for us. this is an inner process of the expansion of consciousness. It is a thought, growing and realizing within. All can do this who wish and who will take the time and trouble, but it will mean work. The majority of people are too lazy to make the effort.
Daily we must train our thought to see that only which we wish to experience, and since we are growing into what we are mentally dwelling upon, we should put all small and insignificant thoughts and ideals out of our thinking and see things in a larger way. We must cultivate the habit of an enlarged mental horizon, daily seeing farther and farther ahead, and so experiencing larger and greater things in our daily life.
A good practice for the enlargement of thought is daily to see ourselves in a little bigger place, filled with more activity, surrounded with increased influence and power; feel more and more that things are coming to us; see that much more is just ahead, and so far as possible, know that we now have all that we see and that we feel. Affirm that you are that larger thing; that you are now entered into that larger life; feel that something within is drawing more and to you; live with the idea and let the concept grow, expecting only the biggest and the best to happen. Never let small thoughts come into your mind, and you will soon find that a larger and greater experience has come into your life.
KEEPING THE THING IN MIND
Never let go of the mental image until it becomes manifested. Daily bring up the clear picture of what is wanted and impress it on the mind as an accomplished fact. This impressing on our minds the thought of what we wish to realize will cause our own minds to impress the same thought on Universal Mind. In this way, we shall be praying without ceasing. We do not have to hold continually the thought of something we want in order to get it, but the thought that we may inwardly become the thing we want. Fifteen minutes, twice a day, is time enough to spend in order to create anything, but the rest of the time ought also to be spent constructively. That is, we must stop all negative thinking and give over all wrong thought, holding fast to the realization that it is now done unto us. We must know that we are dealing with the only power there is in the Universe; that there is none other beside it, and that we in partaking of its nature and its laws. Always, behind the word that we send forth, must be the calm confidence in our ability to speak into the power, and the willingness of Mind to execute for us. We must gradually grow in confidence and in trust in the unseen world of spiritual activity. This is not hard, if we remember that the Spirit makes things out of Itself by simply becoming the thing that it makes, and since there is no other power to oppose it, it will always work. The Spirit will never fail us if we never fail to believe in its goodness and its responsiveness.
Life will become one grand song, when we realize that since God is for us, none can be against us. We shall cease merely to exist; we shall live.