Introduction

This book is designed to teach the principles of life-building through constructive thought. All power lies in creative thought. Thought is the key to life, for as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. People are beginning to understand today something of the power of thought to shape the individual’s destiny. They know vaguely that thoughts are things, but how the Great Law of thought is to be applied, they do not know.

This book shows that your destiny is really in your own hands, because it is impossible to think one thing and produce another, and that by the selection of correct thought, a harmonious and happy life is produced. It shows that weak and fickle thinking produces a drifting and wasted life, and that positive thinking produces success and happiness. It shows that fear is the ultimate cause or taproot of all sickness, failure, and disappointment, and it shows the only possible method of overcoming fear.

What you really think about any person or any situation is your treatment of that condition, and if you wish the condition to change, you must know how to treat it differently by a change in thought. But it is also true that the fixed general convictions of your life, as distinct from your current thinking, make you what you are. Your mental conduct, your hour-by-hour thinking, produces specific conditions and may be thought of as the weather of your soul. Your fixed convictions concerning the things that really matter are seldom changed and may be called the climate of the soul, and it is these that mold your destiny.

What do you really believe about the great problems of life? What do you think about your relationship to God? What sort of God do you worship? Do you think that prayer really makes any difference? Are you merely praying to a magnified edition of yourself, or are you worshiping the true God in spirit and in truth? What do you think about life after death? Do you think that you have ever lived before? Are you nourishing a grievance at the bottom of your heart because you think you were born into unfavorable conditions? Why is one man sick and another man well? Why does one man live in a happy, comfortable home and another drag out a meager existence in a slum? Why is one man popular and respected, and another man disliked or at least ignored? Why does one man produce a great work while another falters through life without ever doing anything worthwhile? Why are so many sincerely religious people unhappy and frustrated? Why are many earnest Bible students unable to solve a single one of their own problems? Why is it that learned men and women and philosophers are notoriously unsuccessful in the business of personal living? If it is really true that knowledge is power, it is necessary for you to realize that it is your considered attitude to such questions as these that ultimately determines everything in your life, from the state of your body to the daily work that you do and the kind of people that you meet.

 This book is intended to help people clarify their thinking on these important points. It is an attempt to explain the fundamental truth of being in the simple language of everyday life. The author has always believed that it must be possible to explain the most profound truths of religion and philosophy in the simplest language, and he has made it a rule, both in his writings and on the platform, never to employ any word that is not in common use in offices, workshops, streetcars, and so forth.

Some knowledge of metaphysics or spiritual truth is absolutely essential if you are to understand yourself and to take effectual control of your life, and this book deals with the subject from several different angles. The teaching in this book is founded on the Bible. The Bible is not like any other book; it is a spiritual vortex through which spiritual power pours from Heaven to Earth, and the reason why most people derive comparatively little profit from its study is that they lack the spiritual key.

You can have the power to make your life healthy, happy, useful, and outstandingly successful if you will study the laws of life and apply them faithfully. All the essays in this book have previously been published as separate pamphlets and are still obtainable in that form.