Prosperity Chapter XII

Prosperity Chapter XII: 

When physicians told Jane Addams, a young girl just graduated from college, that she could not live more than six months, she said, "All right, I will take that six months to get as near as I can to the one thing I want to do for humanity."

What happened? The firm expression of her determination to do the thing that lay nearest to her heart registered itself so indelibly on the cells in every remotest part of her body, from her brain center to the tips of her fingers, and downward to the points of her toes, that they began immediately to build for health.

Eight years after the medical authority of that time had given her six months to live; she started Hull House, the world-famous Chicago settlement. She later became an international figure, a leader in different phases of the great modern movement for world betterment.

If instead of giving them her positive ringing message for life and work, Jane Addams had impressed upon the cells of her body the negative pronouncement of her physicians, and told them that she was going to die in six months, what would have happened?

No doubt, she would have died; for the cells would have accepted one suggestion as readily as the other. Instead of setting to work to repair and build up the body, they would have quit work; the various organs and tissues would have disintegrated, and the world would never have heard of Jane Addams or her great work.

When we get a thorough understanding of the power that Miss Addams unconsciously used when she cast the thought of death out of her mind and replaced it with the life thought, we can build into the very structure of our bodies whatever we wish them to express.

If we are dissatisfied with the bodies we now have, we can literally build new ones, for every one of the billions of tiny cells that compose the human body is a living, thinking, working entity, which, like the sensitive plate of a camera, records in its structure the image of every emotion, thought, impression, or passion that passes through our consciousness.

The author of that marvelously interesting book, "Cell Intelligence" says: "The cell is a conscious intelligent being, and by reason thereof plans and builds all plants and animals in the same manner as man constructs houses, railroads, and other structures." That is, every cell does its part in building the body, setting the life along the lines we suggest, just as the mason, the bricklayer, the carpenter, and other workers construct a house in accordance with the lines of the architect's plan. Not only that, but scientists now believe that the cells - which constitute the various organs of the body, — the brain, the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the lungs, etc., — have what is called "organ intelligence," and that these cells are susceptible to mental suggestion for the health or disease of their particular organ.

In other words, the little community of cells that form the heart think and work for the heart; the brain community work for the brain; the stomach community, for the stomach, and so on; and all together make a huge army of little body workers, responding instantly to whatever thought we impress on them.

If, for instance, there should be a disease tendency lurking in any part of your body; if your digestive organs, your heart, your kidneys, your liver, or some other organ, should not be functioning normally, by sending encouraging, energizing, uplifting thoughts, the suggestion of health and wholeness, to the community cells, and by living rightly, you can neutralize the disease tendency and bring the organ back to normalcy.

The intelligent cells will do exactly as your thought suggests — work for health and the elimination of the disease tendency. On precisely the same principle, the opposite thought, the thought of disease, of abnormalcy, — suggested to these little cell minds, which are already tending to disease, to abnormalcy, will aggravate the trouble and hasten the development of the lurking disease in the system.

I have heard a man curse his stomach and his digestive organs for not digesting his food properly. Every time he sits down to the table he begins to complain about the food hurting him: "I can't eat this," he will say. "My stomach can't take care of it. I can't digest this; I can't digest that. It is bound to come back on me if I attempt to eat it. I wish I had a decent stomach instead of the good-for-nothing thing I have."

Now, how can any intelligent man expect the cooperation of his stomach and his digestive organs when he is sending such discordant thoughts into their cell minds? When he is constantly blaming and cursing those organs for not functioning normally, upbraiding them for giving him pain and distress, how can he expect them to do their best work and serve him cheerfully and efficiently?

Those organs are like children or employees, and a man might just as reasonably expect to get cheerful, willing, efficient service from his children or his employees by cursing, scolding, and abusing them as to get it from his bodily organs when he does this.

The state of your body is a reflection of your habitual thought about it, your general mental attitude and beliefs regarding your various organs.

When you think of your heart as weak, of your liver as sluggish, of your kidneys as diseased; when you say, "I'm sick; I'm discouraged; I'm tired; I'm down and out; I'm all in; all used up; I don't feel like anything," do you know what you are doing to the little cell minds all through your body? You are weakening and demoralizing them; you are stamping your discouraged, despondent thought, the picture of weakness, of inefficiency, on their very structure, and their functioning will be accordingly deteriorated.

The weak, discouraged, pessimistic, sick or diseased thought produces a condition like itself in every cell in the body, and the body suffers in proportion to the persistence of such thoughts. They tend to tear down, to destroy the body tissues, to paralyze the life functions.

The real basis of all forms of mental healing is the fact that the cells of the body are all alive and intelligent; that they respond to our thought, to our intelligence, to our suggestions to them. It makes a great difference to the mental healer to know that instead of sending his thought into a mass of dead cells, every one is not only alive, but is just as responsive to his mental attitude as an intelligent child would be.

He knows that his health thought, his uplift thought, the thought of their wholeness and completeness, the suggestion of their divine origin, of their power to build up the body, to renew its strength and vigor, sends a thrill of encouragement, of hope and assurance through every one of them, and starts them on their task of neutralizing the disease thought and renewing the health and vitality of his patient.

Be careful what you think into these little cell minds of your body, my friend, for it will come back to you not only in your physical condition but in every aspect of your life.

For example, when you think bad luck into them, when you are thinking how unlucky you are, telling everybody about it, saying that fate is against you, and that no matter what you do you can't get ahead, you are discouraging these little cell minds, just as you do when you think disease and ill health into them. You paralyze them, in other words, and instead of functioning normally, they function abnormally, and your health, your chances of success, your mentality, your power to overcome the obstacles in your way, are all seriously affected. There is a letting down all along the line.  

Prosperity Chapter XII , continued...

Your discouraged, pessimistic thoughts will rob you of energy and pep; demagnetizing you for the very things you are trying to attract, — health and prosperity.

The problem of maintaining physical vigor, abounding health, the magnetic energy that draws things to us out of the cosmic intelligence, is solved when you learn how to keep all of the little cell minds which form the different tissues of the body organs in perfect condition, so that they will be alert, happy, cheerful, hopeful. They will then reflect the maximum of your creative thought, the maximum of vigor and robustness, of physical and mental power, for it is in these little building, creative centers that our grit and our determination are nourished. 

Here is where we get our energy, our motive power, and hence we must be very careful what we whisper into these little cell minds, whether encouragement or discouragement, hope or despair, health or disease, poverty or prosperity. They are, so to speak, the tiny children of the larger mind and are very susceptible to what the larger mind thinks, the instructions it sends them, the various impulses which go out from the central station of the body — the brain.

If a sick, weak man wants to be strong and well, he must impress a strong, healthy picture of himself on the cells that are trying to repair, to rebuild him. He must hold the image of himself as he would like to be, not as he is.

Instead of this many sick people think or say to themselves something like this: "Oh, how sick I am. I feel so weak that I'm afraid I never shall be well again. I shall never be able to do anything in the world. My ambition only mocks and tortures me, because I shall never be able to realize it. Looks as if my work here was done. This disease has gotten such a hold upon me that it will never let go.

Why is it that the Creator allows human beings to suffer this way, tortures them with the ambition to do something which they can never do, never have the strength to do?"

How little people realize that when they hold such thoughts, visualize themselves in a weak, despairing, dying condition, they are just as surely committing suicide as if they were to take a slow poison. Every cell in the body is poisoned and made helpless by the wrong thought.

If you picture the billions of cells in your body as tiny individualities, little dancers, who are dancing to whatever tune you give them, you will get some idea of the action of your mind upon them in uplifting or depressing you; for they dance the life dance or the death dance, the sick dance or the health dance, the poverty dance or the prosperity dance, the love dance or the hate dance, the happiness dance or the misery dance, the success dance or the failure dance, in response to whatever thought tune you give them.

Many people make themselves invalids or semi-invalids all their lives by their down-dragging thought tunes, holding the discouraged conviction that they never will be well, that they are always going to be more or less helpless. If they changed their conviction their physical condition would immediately change. This has been proved true time and time again by the apparent miracles wrought by mental healers, who simply changed the trend of the patient's mind, turned his thought from abnormal, diseased conditions to healthful, wholesome conditions. Then the little cells began to dance to the new tune, the tune of life, of wholeness;. and the body at once responded in renewed vitality and vigor.

Nothing will do more toward making your life, your personality, your environment what you want them to be than the daily habit of thinking into the cell minds of your body what you wish them to express, — health, prosperity, success, happiness, joy, goodwill, harmony peace, divine power and energy. You can do this every morning before you start out to your daily task and every little while during the day when you have a bit of leisure.

The important thing is to keep out of the mind all enemy thoughts. The moment any of these gain entrance, and are permitted to remain, they begin to tear down and destroy. They play havoc with your efficiency, with your health and happiness.

If anything occurs during the day to disturb your poise or your self-control, if you feel angry impulses rising within you, recollect yourself as quickly as possible and get control again, for nothing is more hurtful to the whole man or woman than mental inharmony of any nature.

You can speak peace into the billions of turbulent cells, just as Christ spoke peace to the turbulent waters of the sea. When you give them the harmony keynote they will respond. They will always reflect what you suggest to them. When the master mind speaks they obey. Change your inharmonious thought and you change the condition of the billions of little cell entities in your body.

In short, whatever you want your life to express, think it into those entities and it will come to pass; for they are your partners, doing team work with you. Think of every cell in your body as a little worker for you, a little producer, a little intelligent separate entity, cooperating with the one great universal intelligence, the great cosmic purpose.

Picture the cells collectively as a myriad army welded together by Supreme Power and working together to make you a dominant, forceful personality, a man or a woman capable of conquering any environment, mastering any unfortunate conditions that wrong thinking may have brought into manifestation.

Never allow yourself to think weakness, poverty or poverty-stricken conditions into them or want or limitation of any kind.

You are God's child; think accordingly. Think in keeping with your immortal inheritance. Think big, because you are big. Think generously, because you are made to express generosity.

You are not made for small living, but for largeness of living; you were made for a life of abundance, not for the pinched, stunted, starved life. The possibilities of the life which keys the cell minds to the right thought is beyond all calculation. Every thought of power, every thought of health, every thought of love, every truth thought, every beauty thought, every thought of perfection, of wholeness, of vigor of mind and body, every thought of God will attune your mind and body to the power and perfection of the creative plan of Divine Mind.

Thinking health, thinking happiness, thinking truth, thinking power and perfection, prosperity, success, into the little cell minds of the body will, in the future, be a very important part of every child's training. Their lives from the start will be keyed right; the little cell workers will get the right command, the right mental picture, and they will build for health, prosperity, and success, not for weakness, poverty, and failure.

Right thinking, making the cells work in the right way, of construction instead of destruction, will banish from the earth two of the greatest handicaps of the race — disease and poverty.

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