The Great Within, Chapter Five
by Christian Daa Larson
When properly directed, the subconscious mind can inspire the conscious mind to do the right thing at the right time, to take advantage of opportunities during the psychological moment, and to so deal with circumstances that all things will work together to promote the object in view. It is, therefore, evident that when the subconscious is trained to work in harmony with the objects and desires of the conscious mind, failure becomes impossible, and success in greater and greater measures may be secured by anyone.
When trying to remove undesirable habits, tendencies or desires, the mind should never think, "I shall not do this any more," because through such a thought or statement, the habit in mind will be reimpressed upon the subconscious and will gain a deeper foothold in the system than it had before.
The proper course to pursue is to forget completely what you desire to remove; refuse to think of it; when tempted to think of the matter turn attention upon the opposite qualities, desires or tendencies. Should you fail to become sufficiently interested in those opposite desires to forget what you want to forget, look for the most interesting points of view connected with those desires. The mental effort employed in trying to find the most interesting point of view connected with those desires will cause the mind to become thoroughly interested in those desires, and will, consequently, forget those things that should be forgotten.
While the mind is being interested in those desires that you wish to cultivate, they should be impressed upon the subconscious with all the depth of feeling that can possibly be aroused. These impressions should be repeated a number of times every day, and the new desires will soon take root in the subconscious.
Every desire or tendency that takes root in the subconscious will begin to develop and express itself in the personal self, and will be felt throughout the personality. When the new desire is fully expressed, it will be thoroughly felt; and since no two desires of opposite nature can exist in the person at the same time, the old desires will disappear; the old tendencies and the old habits will have vanished completely.
To impress upon the subconscious a strong desire for the better, the purer and the superior, is to cause the system to crave something better; the force of desire will be refined; the entire organism will be purified, and the wants of the personal self will become normal on a higher plane.
All kinds of undesirable habits may be removed by constantly impressing upon the subconscious the idea of pure desire; and all tendencies to anger, hatred and similar states, may be removed by causing the qualities of love, kindness, justice and sympathy to be more fully developed in the great within.
To remove fear and worry, impress the subconscious, as frequently as possible, with the deep feeling of faith, gratitude and mental sunshine.
To have faith is to know that man has the power to perpetually increase the good, and that he may constantly press on to better things and greater things. To have faith is to be guided by superior mental lucidity, and thereby know how to select what is safe and secure; and he who knows that he is on the safe path, the ascending path, the endless path to better things and greater things, has eliminated fear absolutely.
To live constantly in the spirit of gratitude is not only to remove worry, but the cause of worry. To be grateful for the good that is now coming into life is to open the way for the coming of greater good. This is the law; and he who is daily receiving the greater good, has no cause for worry; he will even forget that worry ever had a place in his mind.
To constantly impress the subconscious with mental sunshine, is to establish the tendency to live on the bright side, the sunny side; and to live on the bright side is to increase your own brightness; your mind will become more brilliant, your thinking will have more lucidity and clearness, your nature will have more sweetness, your personality will be in more perfect harmony with everything, your life will be better, your work will be better—everything will be better; therefore, by living on the bright side, all things will steadily become better and brighter for you.
When all is dark, and everything seems to go wrong, arouse all your energies for the purpose of impressing and directing the subconscious to produce the change you desire. Give the deepest possible feeling to those impressions, and have stronger faith than you ever had before.
Continue persistently until the great within begins to respond; you will then feel from within how to act, and you will be given the power to do what you feel you should do. Before long, things will take a turn; the threatened calamity will be avoided by the coming forth of that power within that is greater than all adversities, all troubles, all wrongs; and instead, this power, having been awakened, will proceed to create a better future than you ever knew before.