The Ultimate Guide To Success

‘The Ultimate Guide to Success’ covers policies on the proper use of power, significance of enthusiasm, character and individuality, gratitude, and contentment, written by Julia Seton, the founder of the Church and School of the New Civilization, an influential figure in the development of the New Thought movement from the esoteric- metaphysical point of view, and exerted a considerable influence over Fenwicke and Ernest Holmes, founder of the Religious Science movement.

By entirely governing our minds and focusing on what we want, we can attain it. This book proposes understanding and exemplifies how by breathing and concentrating we can make a connection with the divine supply and unclose the enormous power that lies within us. It also brings together the twenty methods for success. This offers seemingly common but usually ignored conversations like learning about yourself, having a plan, showing appreciation, creating happiness, having faith, and developing selflessness.

Dr. Julia Seton (1862-1950) was one of the most outstanding women of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. She was one of the very few women physicians of her time, and one of the first women to be accepted into the American Medical Association. Early in her career she recognized the close relationship between one’s physical well-being and one’s attitude toward life. She was a pioneer in what today is called the holistic approach to healthy living. She was a leader in what was then known as the ‘New Thought’ movement and gave lectures, wrote articles and books and formed a foundation to promulgate this concept.

The Ultimate Guide to Success by Julia Seton, M.D. is a classic self-help and personal-development work built around a simple but ambitious idea: the quality and direction of a person’s mind have a profound influence on the quality and direction of their life. The modern edition combines two of Seton’s earlier works, Concentration: The Secret of Success and The Science of Success, bringing together her teachings on concentration, mental discipline, desire, faith, enthusiasm, self-knowledge, planning, appreciation, happiness, power, and service. The combined volume is presented as a practical philosophy of success, but its understanding of success is broader than money or professional achievement. Seton connects achievement with inner development, suggesting that a successful person must learn to direct thought, develop character, recognize personal potential, and contribute positively to others. The book is rooted in the early twentieth-century New Thought tradition, so its language frequently connects mental discipline with spiritual or “divine” power.

At the heart of The Ultimate Guide to Success is Seton’s belief that people often underestimate the power of their own minds. She argues that thoughts are not passive events that simply occur inside us. They can become instruments through which we shape our attitudes, choices, habits, and eventually our circumstances. The book therefore begins from a distinctly mind-centered understanding of achievement. Instead of asking readers to depend primarily on luck, external circumstances, or other people, Seton asks them to examine the inner conditions from which their actions arise. The underlying message is that success begins before the visible result. It begins with desire, attention, belief, and the ability to hold the mind steadily upon a chosen purpose.

The first major idea is the desire for success. Seton treats desire as more than wishful thinking. A genuine desire gives direction to a person's energy. Without something clearly wanted, mental and physical effort become scattered. A person may work extremely hard and still feel unsuccessful because the effort has no unified purpose. Seton therefore encourages readers to become conscious of what they actually want rather than drifting through life according to circumstances. In her philosophy, a clearly formed desire becomes the beginning of a plan. It gives concentration something meaningful to work toward.

This leads directly to the book's central principle: concentration. Seton considers concentration one of the fundamental powers behind achievement. The official descriptions of the combined edition emphasize that controlling the mind and concentrating on what one desires are central to her method. For Seton, concentration means much more than sitting quietly and paying attention for a few minutes. It means learning to gather one's scattered mental energy and direct it toward a definite purpose. A distracted mind constantly moves from one concern to another, while a concentrated mind develops the ability to remain with an idea long enough to turn it into action.

Seton uses examples from collective human achievement to illustrate this principle. Civilizations, movements, and individuals accomplish remarkable things when their energies become focused on a definite objective. In this sense, concentration is presented as a universal principle rather than merely a productivity technique. Great accomplishments require sustained attention. Whether the goal is artistic, political, intellectual, financial, or personal, scattered energy produces limited results, while organized energy can produce transformation.

An important part of Seton's approach is breathing and concentration. She connects controlled breathing with mental stillness and inward awareness, presenting breathing exercises as a way of preparing the mind for concentrated thought. The book includes specific sections devoted to breathing, concentration, and instructions for entering what Seton calls “the silence.” The purpose is not simply physical relaxation. Seton believes that deliberate breathing can help quiet mental distractions and create a state in which a person becomes more receptive to inner guidance and spiritual awareness.

The idea of going into the silence is particularly important because it reflects the spiritual foundation of Seton's philosophy. The silence is essentially a period of inward withdrawal from external noise. Instead of allowing the demands of the world to dominate consciousness, the individual becomes quiet enough to examine thoughts, desires, fears, and aspirations. In Seton's framework, this quietness can also become a way of connecting with a deeper divine source. Modern readers may interpret this as meditation, reflective practice, prayer, visualization, or simply intentional solitude, but Seton presents it through the spiritual vocabulary of New Thought.

From concentration, the book moves naturally toward mental control. Seton argues that people cannot expect to create purposeful lives if they allow every passing thought, fear, criticism, or discouraging circumstance to determine their state of mind. This does not mean pretending that difficulties do not exist. Rather, it means refusing to give every difficulty complete control over one's mental life. The individual must learn to choose which thoughts deserve sustained attention.

This is where Seton's ideas about power become significant. She does not portray power merely as authority over other people. Properly used, power is the ability to direct one's own energy toward constructive purposes. The book discusses the importance and use of power and enthusiasm as part of its broader success philosophy. Power without direction can become destructive or wasteful, but power combined with concentration and purpose can become a force for achievement. Seton therefore encourages readers to recognize the energy already available within them.

Enthusiasm is another essential ingredient. Seton understands enthusiasm as an emotional force that gives vitality to purposeful action. A person may have a plan but lack the emotional energy to pursue it. Enthusiasm makes effort more persistent and gives ordinary activities a sense of meaning. Yet Seton's version of enthusiasm is not simply excitement. It is closer to an active belief in the value of what one is doing. When people believe deeply in a purpose, they are more likely to remain committed when immediate results are absent.

The book also places considerable importance on knowing yourself. Success cannot be intelligently pursued without self-knowledge. A person needs to understand strengths, weaknesses, interests, habits, motives, and genuine aspirations. Seton's message here is especially practical: do not build a life around somebody else's definition of success. The more clearly individuals understand themselves, the more effectively they can choose goals that fit their abilities and values. Self-knowledge also makes it easier to identify mental patterns that interfere with achievement.

Closely connected with self-knowledge is the instruction to have a plan. Seton does not suggest that positive thinking alone is enough. Desire must eventually become organized action. A plan gives direction to concentration and turns an abstract goal into a sequence of practical decisions. Without a plan, enthusiasm can become scattered and desire can remain merely imaginary. The book therefore combines inward mental discipline with outward organization: know what you want, decide where you are going, and then direct your energy toward getting there.

Another of Seton's important principles is “Mind Your Own Business.” This idea can be understood as a warning against wasting mental energy on matters that do not belong to us. People frequently lose concentration by comparing themselves with others, judging other people's choices, worrying about external opinions, or becoming consumed by circumstances beyond their control. Seton encourages a more disciplined use of attention. Your own work, character, goals, and responsibilities deserve your energy. Constantly monitoring everyone else prevents the individual from developing his or her own potential.

Seton also emphasizes appreciation and gratitude. At first, this may seem to contradict her strong emphasis on desire and ambition. If a person is always trying to achieve more, why should that person be content with what already exists? Seton's answer is that appreciation does not eliminate ambition; it creates a healthier foundation for it. A person who recognizes existing blessings is less likely to approach life from a constant sense of scarcity. Gratitude changes the emotional atmosphere from which future goals are pursued.

This connects with the book's discussion of happiness. Seton does not treat happiness merely as the reward that arrives after success. Instead, she sees happiness as an active condition that influences the way people live and work. Waiting for some future achievement before allowing oneself to feel fulfilled can create a permanently dissatisfied existence. The more constructive approach is to cultivate happiness while pursuing goals. In this sense, success is not simply reaching a destination. It is also learning how to live meaningfully during the journey.

Faith forms another major component of Seton's philosophy. Because the book belongs to the New Thought tradition, faith has both spiritual and psychological dimensions. It involves confidence in a larger order of life as well as confidence in one's own capacity to act. Seton believes that fear and doubt can weaken concentration, while faith makes purposeful action possible. Faith does not mean that every desired outcome will automatically appear without effort. Rather, it encourages the individual to move forward without allowing uncertainty to destroy determination.

One of the more distinctive aspects of the book is its idea of divine supply. Seton teaches that the individual can connect through breath, concentration, and inward stillness with a greater spiritual source of power. This reflects the metaphysical character of her writing and distinguishes it from more secular modern productivity books. For contemporary readers, this concept may be interpreted literally as a spiritual teaching or more symbolically as a way of describing the deep reserves of creativity, confidence, and purpose available through disciplined inward attention.

The book also stresses selflessness, which prevents Seton's philosophy from becoming a purely individualistic theory of personal gain. Success should not be measured only by what one can obtain. A truly successful person should also become useful to others. Service, generosity, and constructive contribution give achievement a moral dimension. This is important because Seton's philosophy recognizes that power without character can become selfishness. The successful individual should therefore develop not only the ability to achieve but also the wisdom to use achievement responsibly.

The principle of compensation adds another dimension to the book's discussion of effort and reward. Seton argues, within her New Thought framework, that effort is not ultimately wasted. What a person gives out through work, character, service, and concentrated intention is connected to what eventually returns. This idea reflects the broader New Thought belief that there is an underlying law of correspondence between inner causes and outer conditions. Modern readers may not accept this principle literally, but as a motivational idea it encourages persistence and discourages the belief that honest effort is meaningless.

Taken as a whole, The Ultimate Guide to Success presents success as a process of aligning thought, desire, attention, action, character, and spiritual conviction. The book's twenty methods bring together practical and philosophical principles such as knowing yourself, making plans, using power wisely, developing enthusiasm, practicing appreciation, cultivating happiness, having faith, and becoming selfless. Rather than presenting success as a mysterious gift reserved for a fortunate few, Seton argues that individuals can cultivate the inner conditions that make achievement more likely.

The historical context also helps explain the book's distinctive voice. Julia Seton, M.D. (1862–1950), was a physician, writer, lecturer, and important figure in the New Thought movement. Modern editions describe her as one of the few women physicians of her period and one of the first women accepted into the American Medical Association. Her early interest in the relationship between physical well-being and attitude toward life contributed to her holistic approach. The Science of Success was originally published in 1914, while Concentration appeared earlier, in 1909; the modern volume combines the two works.

Ultimately, The Ultimate Guide to Success by Julia Seton is less a conventional book about career advancement than a philosophy of personal mastery. Its central argument is that people must first learn to govern their inner world if they want to govern their lives effectively. Concentration gives direction to desire; breathing and silence create mental stillness; self-knowledge clarifies purpose; planning turns desire into action; enthusiasm sustains effort; appreciation and happiness prevent ambition from becoming endless dissatisfaction; faith provides courage; and selflessness gives achievement a larger purpose.

For readers searching for a summary of The Ultimate Guide to Success, the most important lesson is that Seton sees success as something that begins within. External achievement matters, but it is presented as the consequence of deeper qualities: disciplined thought, definite purpose, persistent attention, confidence, gratitude, and constructive action. Her New Thought language about divine power and mental influence reflects the spiritual beliefs of her era, yet many of the practical ideas—knowing yourself, focusing attention, planning carefully, avoiding unnecessary comparison, cultivating enthusiasm, and appreciating what you already have—remain recognizable in modern personal-development literature.

The lasting value of the book lies in its insistence that attention is a form of power. Where attention goes, effort tends to follow. If the mind is continually occupied by fear, resentment, comparison, and uncertainty, energy becomes scattered. If it is deliberately directed toward meaningful goals, constructive habits, learning, service, and personal growth, life can become more purposeful. Seton's ultimate vision of success is therefore not simply the accumulation of wealth or recognition. It is the development of a person capable of directing thought, using power responsibly, pursuing worthwhile goals, maintaining inner balance, and contributing something valuable to the world. In that sense, The Ultimate Guide to Success remains a distinctive early contribution to the literature of self-improvement: a blend of concentration training, positive mental discipline, spiritual philosophy, and practical advice about how to build a more intentional life.

Chapter 1 : The Desire for Success

 
Whenever the question is asked: “What is the world seeking? What the world wants most to secure?” the answer will most likely be that the whole world is seeking happiness. No matter how diverse or obscure the backgrounds of the respondents may seem, they all lead toward this one point, and everything in life combines to make for this one emotion.

In order to be happy, people must determine on what terms success is defined. When we find out from an individual what that person calls success, we have mastered the secret of the thing which will make that person happy.

We may ask a hundred different people what they mean by success, and we will get a hundred different answers. Webster defines success as, “favourable results; prosperity,” and this is the definition which is generally accepted. Success, when rightly interpreted, means simply the power to do what we want to do. No matter what anyone else wants to do, or what that person might accomplish, that would not be our success. No one can really secure success except from one’s own plane of comprehension. There are those who look upon money and the power to amass it, as the only true success; they might have anything else the world can give, and yet they would feel unsuccessful and cast down. Another may want love, and he or she might win honor, fame, money, yet on missing love, the one thing that person truly wanted, he would be poor, unhappy, and unsuccessful. Success is a purely personal possession, and does not admit of a universal interpretation.

Granted that Success really means getting what we want, and failure is the lack of power to do this, the next question which presents itself is, Why don’t all of us, in every walk f life, get just what we want, when we want it and for as long as we want it? Why are we all not successful according to our plane of desire? This is the vital point, and the vital answer to it is, we are successful or unsuccessful through our own unaided law.

Success can be arranged for in every life, just as simply as any other attribute of human existence can be.

It is an acknowledged fact that we have and express in ourselves just as much or as little as we have power to recognize and think possible of attainment. Success comes to us because we compel it. It does not wait around and then rush in without an accompanying effort on our own part. We achieve because we believe we can achieve, and we plan toward that end.

The physical world of competition is where some people look for what they call success and happiness, and on this plane many seem to be peculiarly subject to bad “luck.” They are always working, striving, and never attaining. They are always “out of a job.” If they go into business, they make a failure of it. If they take up any kind of occupation, they get sick and lose it. They are always poor. They live in lack, and every cell of their bodies evidences lack. The whole world is full of individuals who are always complaining of their “bad luck.” They are never successful. This is the worldwide expression of unfortunate people. They never get anything they want, and they have always lived as strangers to happiness. It has never occurred to them that the whole thing is due to their own errors of position. They do not know that if they would look at the whole world fearlessly in the face and ask for what they want and make no compromise, they would get it.

People who go at anything in a half-heated way, with the appearance and thought that luck is a against them, will always find that “luck” is against them; they make it so by their position toward it. No one will knowingly employ anyone who is a “has been,” a “dead beat,” or a “no good.” The successful business executive wants employees who are “lucky,” and whose zeal, courage, ambition, and belief in their own accomplishments make them a “mascot” for those who employ them. Every kind of work in the world is clamoring for “live ones,” but there is positively no commercial value for the “dead ones” who glut the market.

There is a lot of difference between people who are “hunting a job” and those who are looking for work. Lots of people would “like a job” if they thought it did not mean work for them. They are looking for a nice, soft, easy place, where they can draw their salary without much exertion on their part. Those who want work are not long without it. If they know how to ask for it, they can secure anything that they want and keep it until they get tired of it or outgrow it, and then they can find another position just as easily. They are always happy, for they know how to get and keep what they go after, and they know that no one can take it from them but themselves. But people who are only hunting for a job are frequently out of work after they get a job, unless someone is constantly helping them.

The thing that makes the difference between successful and unsuccessful people is simply a difference of recognition of existing conditions, seen and unseen, and their own relation to these conditions. We have within us a vital power against which everything else is powerless, if we know it and know how to use it. This center is the powerhouse of our being, and here we attract and accumulate force; it is ruled over by our thoughts and our will.

We can attract anything in the universe to us on which we set our thoughts; we can then will it into position for transference to us. Thoughts are things, and whatever we “can think” we can become. We can fashion our own material universe by the simple correct control of our own thinking.

We cannot hope to vitalize anything into a successful termination or continuation for ourselves or for others, unless the torch of intense throbbing life is burning within us. The consciousness of our own power lights the candle of the latent soul energy, and develops us along positive creative lines of application.

When we have thoroughly learned this lesson of our own power and control of the energy within, we become master over all external things. We have power then over all the negative forces in the universe. We are the highest expression of conscious power, and it is for us to command, they must obey.

People on the lowest round have within themselves the leaven of thought force that allows them to rise through their own increasing understanding. In concentration they have an open door nobody can shut. Concentration is not alone for those who are in specialized states of consciousness; it is the natural birthright of the laborer as well as the mystic. It is thought force centralized that produces form. Concentration creates not only the thing itself but the way by which that thing may be accomplished. There is nothing in heaven or earth, God or human, but spirit mind and spirit form. Through concentration we link ourselves with the true life, and from seemingly impossible conditions we can bring about the fruits of our powerful thinking and become lord ruler of our earthly domain.

It is our own fault if our lives narrow down to limitations, and our hopes to petty confines. It is our own fault if our work degenerates into the deadly routine of drudgery, in which we do always what others want us to do in order to build up their success, in which we can have little part. It is our own fault if we do not recognize our immortal birthright of freedom, but go on in paths where we hear only the death-knell of success and personal attainment.

It is not given to all to be equally great, or there would be no longer an expression of growth on this plane; but it is given to all of us to know the truth of our own latent possibilities and to develop them to the uttermost; to have high ideals and ambitions, and to work them out into the highest form of energy.



 

Chapter 2 : The Need for Concentration

 

The first step towards conscious power is CONCENTRATION. Without concentration a life cannot expect to pass along in paths of peace. When we wish to know the difference between the physical, mental or psychical development of nations, races, countries or individuals, we can easily determine it if we look at the difference in their power of concentration.

Greece concentrated on art and beauty until she became a world of artistic wonder. Part of a nation concentrated for liberty, and the feet of the Pilgrim Fathers trod New England shores. People concentrated for freedom, and the shackles of millions of slaves fell before them.

Concentration is the vital essence of all life, and without it there is no real purpose, no real control. Upon the power of concentration, more than upon any other one thing, depends our law of attracting, controlling and mastering life’s conditions.

Everyone is born into this world in some direct line of concentration. One is not born an American, an Englishman, an Irishman, a Jew, or a Chinese, by chance; everything comes by the laws of natural relationship. Each of us is just whatever we have made ourselves, through concentration, during our cosmic journey. We have built ourselves by the power of our own thought, and this thought energy is expressed in the objective conditions, in which we find ourselves.

Whenever we see an individual anywhere in life, whether successful or unsuccessful, from the Goulds, Vanderbilts or Rockefellers of the millionaire world to the common street-sweeper and rag-picker, we may be sure that they are, one and all, the direct result of their own creative energy, both inherited and acquired. We have a long line of millionaires on the one hand, and a long line of paupers on the other; we also have many lives that stand for success, power, and liberty of personal action. Besides these, there is a world full of failures and unfortunate expressions of lack. What has brought about these different expressions, and where did the division begin?

Long ages ago, when the thought or mind of these individuals began operating, the Law was there, as certain and unchangeable as life itself. We are all just the thing which our own concentration has made us, and it depends alone upon our own self whether we will go on, year after year, in paths that lead only to deeper and deeper lack; or whether we will face around, start new lines of powerful thought concentration which will lead us out from bondage into limitless freedom.

One day, on a street in Boston, I saw an old woman selling papers. Her hair was gray; her skin brown and wrinkled; her clothing shabby, and only half sufficient for the chill of the hour. She was simply poverty-stricken, and her thin, piping voice trembled as she called her papers in an effort to compete with the crowd of newsboys around her. Many bought her papers, being drawn to her through sympathy and her evident need. I felt sorry that, with her gray hair, so near the grave, life should have only this to offer her. I sought a reason for it, and asked her to tell me her history.

She was the daughter of a minister. Her mother had been the proverbial meek little woman of history, perfectly fitted to be her father’s wife. Her grandfathers, on both sides of the parental tree, had been ministers. She gave me a graphic sketch of the long line of concentration into which she had been born and in wh1ch she had continued. There was a long line of concentration for lowliness of spirit; for grace; for the utter sinking of self; lack of demand for place or power; lack of self-righteousness; absolute submission; sown through generations, sown by her in her own life, and it had to bring forth its fruit. It did it in the form of that gray-haired, beautifully ragged old woman, who in the last days of her declining years, gathered her harvest on the cold streets of a rich city, underfed, poor and alone.

She was still true to her inherited concentration, for, while I questioned her, she said: “Health, money, and happiness are not for me. My family have borne the cross of poverty and sickness all their lives, and borne it nobly; and some day the Father will give us our reward.”

It is not hard to see where her mind was poised and where that of her family had been poised for generations; nor is it hard to see the inevitable result from such a cause as that long line of concentrated thought force. They could not escape the effect of the Law they had built for themselves, and they will go on kissing their cross for generations yet to come, for their every thought is delaying their own possessions. She said: “Someday the Father will give us our reward,” never knowing that the “day” was, by just that simple Law, put eternally beyond her, and that finally charity will feed her, clothe her, and bury her. All these are but the natural expression of the Law she set in motion for herself.

Then there is the story of the great composer Franz Liszt. His brother wanted to be a great landowner and own farm after farm, and scorned the musical inclinations of Liszt. Liszt would not share his brother’s ambitions and ran away time after time to follow his desire for music. In after years, when the brother had by constant attention become a large and wealthy farmer and Liszt was still a poor, struggling composer, the farmer called on Liszt and, finding him out, wrote upon a card, “Herr Liszt, Land Owner.” When, in the course of time, the composer returned the call and found his brother absent, he left his card with the inscription, “Herr Liszt, Brain Owner.” Here are two examples of acquired concentration. Each followed his own line, becoming what he desired, although born under the same inherited concentration. One wanted land, concentrated, worked for, and obtained it. One wanted music, and the world today pays tribute to his concentration.

On these stories hangs all the truth of the Law. Whatever we wish to become, we may become, because no one says no to us but ourselves. No one limits us hut ourselves. No one makes us pass along in paths of lack but ourselves. Whatever we have or do not have is a world picture, which we hang on our own life, and it tells everyone who runs and can read, the whole story of just how skillful or unskillful we are with the tools that were given to us in the very dawn of our existence.

We are living hourly in a world full of glorious opportunities, and full of a substance from which we can fashion our own environment. There is no limit set for us, save the one our own understanding places upon us. We may have and hold and use all that there is, in just the hour we awaken to our own natural power of creation.

Our conditions, both in environment and body, are simply the product of our own consciousness. The rag picker is only this and nothing more, because this is what he has fashioned for himself from the substance of his own thought world. He will remain a rag picker as long as he has only a rag picker’s vision. As soon as he recognizes something better for himself, and sets about fashioning it by the power of concentrated thought and action, he will receive it.

Our thoughts are our creators, and they must create for us just what we direct them to create. It is no one’s fault but our own if we set them to fashion a concentration of lack and limitation. The substance is always acted upon by thought force; and our homes, our friends, our bodies, our positions, everything, are only the outside picture of our inner self; and they are proof positive of the freedom or bondage of our own thought world.

We may be whatever we wholly desire to be, and our expression will follow us in form to the very limit of the power with which we plunge our consciousness.

The moment a life desires anything, it becomes related with that thing, and it has established the Law, which will bring it into union, if it knows how to fulfill the Law and then does it. Desire is the prophecy of its fulfillment, and when rightly directed, will bring to us even the things we have once called impossible, and then wisdom will make them our own.

Desire is the first out-reaching of the Law; it is the God-push within us trying to get us into relationship with the things, which the ALL LIFE has always had in store for us, waiting the hour of our unfoldment.

When we once learn the truth of the power of our own workmanship, the next step is to decide just what we wish to express and then set about fashioning it in consciousness. We are all discoverers, creators and unfolders. We must use all our tools to express ourselves. We first discover the plan of our life, and relate it with the Universal life. We must know what we want and know that it is ours, just as soon as we can manifest it. We always get our own on every level of consciousness. No Law can take our own away, because our own is whatever we have created for ourselves, and it belongs to us by the great cosmic law of having discovered the plan.

Once we have discovered the plan, we must then create it mentally. As conscious creators, we must always create the form in which we can express just what we want, and just how we want it, and then to .create it in this form. The next step is to go on unfolding finer and finer expressions of the form; thus fulfilling the Law of constructive living.

Before we can discover, create, or unfold conditions to persist, we must first win control over our own minds, and consciously manipulate our own thought tools. We can never hope for an expression of power as long as we cannot control, direct and understand our own beings.

The unsuccessful lives are the non-concentrated lives. The sick minds are the abstract minds. The utterly helpless multitudes, that are always the object of charity, are those who have no concentration. They have fixed ideas of negativeness; and the puny plans they have discovered for themselves plunge them into constant relations with creations of lack, limitation and failure.

When thinking has not been passed into form, it is of little value in life; and when thinking doe pass into form in our life through unconscious, negative concentration, it can ruin us; but when thinking is consciously passed into a fixed power and used for a powerful purpose, it can become the pathway to the very center of universal wisdom, and open the portals to divine discoveries and creations, which become the foundation for wonderful expressions in our life, and an aid to generations yet to come.

The first step on the path of Concentration is to own our own field of consciousness. Only about half the world does this. The entire sick world, the entire failure world, is owned by its own and other people’s negative thoughts. It is interesting to notice how few there are who are really in control of their own minds. The field of consciousness is open to every kind of random, drifting I thought forms; and many carry around minds that are ready to receive every negative thing that is projected into them either by individuals or conditions.

Often a thought will get possession of a mind and stay with it. Thoughts will pour in just as they please, bringing what they please, and the mind must accept them unless it is master of itself.

People will lie awake all night long, muse and brood all day over an unwelcome thought that possesses them, instead of owning their own field of consciousness and banishing the things which are only making them miserable.