The Master Mind

This is an excerpt from the book Mental Chemistry by Charles Haanel, edited by Anthony R. Michalski, and is part of The Complete Master Key Course -- http://www.thecompletemasterkeycourse.com available through Kallisti Publishing.

“Great men or masters stand like solitary towers in the Eternal City. And secret passages running deep beneath external nature give their thoughts intercourse with high Intelligence, which strengthens and controls them. And of which the laborers on the surface do not even dream.”
The Master Mind is within your body and soul, yet interpenetrating both. It is the Grand Man—the God Man—of each of us. It is the same in all human beings and is what is familiarly called the “I AM.”

A Master is one who is not controlled or mastered by flesh, blood, the Devil, or others. He is not a subject, but a ruler. He knows, and he knows that he knows; because of this he is free and can be dominated by no one.

When you have reached the point where you are steadily mastering and overcoming and clothing your mind with more and more knowledge, you have your face toward the Light and are moving onward and upward.

Law becomes your servant and is no longer your master. You speak your thought or word accompanied with faith, will, and the proper mental picture, and your word accomplishes that whereunto it is sent. Or, in other words, the Creative Law hastens to fulfill your word.

High tension power represents direct contact with Spiritual Power and just as in the electrical world it must be reduced to a lower tension to be of practical, mechanical value, so this high tension power in man must be transformed and reduced in the Soul (or Subconscious Mind) to become of practical utility in the business world. We become masters by self-study, self control, and self-directed effort.

The thirst for the unrevealed and hidden knowledge should be so great that we are well nigh ready to welcome death to obtain it. The idols of conventionality, custom, and respectability must in no wise be allowed to become a stumbling block or barrier on the path. Everyone who has ascended to the mastery has had to come to the place where he dared to defy the thought, the judgment, and the reason of the objective world.

The story is told of a student placing himself under the tutelage of a sage. The sage seemed indifferent and careless in his work of advancing the student. The student complained to the sage that he was not being taught. The sage said, “Very well, young man. Follow me.” He led him over the hills, through the valleys and fields, and out into a lake into the deep waters. The sage then plunged the student beneath the water and held him there until all other desires of the young man were concentrated into the one all-important desire, namely air. Gold, wealth, honor, riches, and fame were no longer important to him. Finally, when nearly dead for want of breath, the sage lifted him up and said, “Young man, what did you want most when you were under the water?”
The young man replied, “Air, air, air.” Then his teacher said, “When you want Wisdom as badly as you wanted air, you will get it.”

Intense desire, therefore, is the first requisite in becoming a Master Mind. Those who have made a mark in this world—those who have ascended to the heights—are those who desired intensely and incessantly. Those weak in desire never reach Mastery or the Heights until they become strong and soulfully passionate in desire.

The attraction and repulsion between chemicals is wholly a matter of intelligence and polarity, or, we might say love and hate. Just so, mind may be a magnetic pole to attract success, or it may be a magnetic pole to attract failure. Your mind becomes a money magnet in accordance with the manner in which you manipulate your consciousness. When it is a money magnet, every transaction apparently results in profit.

A man’s commercial worth depends upon his internal worth and the effectiveness with which he can bring his internal worth into his external consciousness and activity. In other words, it is the inner gold that attracts the outer gold. It is the inner value that attracts the outer value. A man who has the consciousness of wealth and value, plussed with an equivalent knowledge, will always find a place.

Some one has said:
Sublime is the dominion of the mind over body, that for a time can make flesh and nerve impregnable and strong sinews like steel, so that the weak become mighty. For a well-regulated mind sees all things as they should be seen, appraises them at their proper value, turns them to its own advantage, and adheres firmly to its own opinions, as it knows all their force and weight.
There are laws which if violated will weaken, or prevent the development of, what would otherwise result in a powerful mind. These laws fulfilled and observed prevent weakness, and develop and bring into expression that quality of mind which is recognized as power.

Do not allow anyone to dominate your mind! Many are afraid to express the royalty of their own thoughts and convictions because a friend, neighbor, or relative may disagree or disapprove. This is suppression, or repression, and nothing can grow great or strong under repression. Expression is the law of growth.

The timidity that prohibits you from thinking along forbidden lines of thought always stultifies the mind and prevents it from being clothed with power. Prolonged halting between two opinions prevents the growth of a powerful mind.

Dare to be an explorer in the realm of thought. Dare to think deeply and radically, for the mind, like muscles, grows strong with use.

Greatness lies unborn and unexpressed in the bosom of thousands of men and women because of lack of initiative. The lack of initiative is due to fear. Fear is due to the belief in the reality of two powers: good and bad. And he whose greatness lies unborn in the womb of his soul has a greater belief in the power of evil than in the power of good and because of this fear he does not venture to fulfill the call of his soul and thus obtain the crown of an overcomer and conquerer.

In failing to act, he is already overcome in not daring to act. In this sense, fear is the great devil: the foundation and source of all poverty, unhappiness, ill-health, and crime.

Let any human being feel and believe that he can never lack in the possession of any good thing and he is already on the path to prosperity.

Material scientists have discovered that so-called matter cannot be destroyed. Its form may be changed; it can be reduced to invisibility; but, it still exists.

If every ton of inflammable substance were consumed by fire, the planet would weigh exactly the same after as it did before, proving that nothing can be destroyed.

The form is changed, but the matter still exists in other forms.

This itself is evidence that matter is eternal and indestructible. If tons of visible substance can be floated out into the atmosphere and become invisible through the disintegrating power of fire, we know that it must be equally true that the invisible can be made visible. This is being proven today by the great nitrate plants. Through electrical vibration they are condensing and crystalizing the nitrogen of the atmosphere, and it remains for the inventive mind yet to bring out of the atmosphere the foods that we are now taking out of the earth by the process of cultivation.

They who can think far enough and deep enough into the undiscovered realms of knowledge and law as related to electricity and other ethereal forces will be the inventors and discoverers whose names will be written in the Hall of Fame.

Such men must be free from fear; men unmoved and unswerved by ridicule and derision; men who keep their minds fixed and centered upon one great purpose. Such men press on and on, regardless of what others may think or say.

This is initiative, and it is initiative that causes ideals to become real. He who believes that all things are possible, to him all things are possible. Such a believer walks in the path of a Master. The light of inspiration shines upon his path, directs his every step, saves him from pitfalls and stumbling blocks, and leads him triumphantly to the heights of victory.

Nearly every person who has reached mature life has had various manifestations and experiences that reveal to him the fact that there is a mind in him that knows and reveals facts and events that are beyond the possibility of the normal concept or intellectual plane of mind. These manifestations may come in the form of the “still small voice” or a vivid, prophetic dream or vision.

Many times it comes simply as an impression or feeling, especially is this true with the successful business man who acts in accord with the inner voice, or impression, rather than according to appearance or judgments on the external plane, no matter how favorable these judgments may appear to the reasoning mind.

These experiences are the inner voice that indicate superior knowledge and wisdom coming to the conscious mind from some mysterious source. It is the same Mind that spoke through all the great masters of ancient or modern times.

This voice and these phenomena come from the third plane of consciousness. It is sometimes called the “sixth sense.” In the New Psychology, it is known as super-consciousness. This Super Mind knows of your dangers and protects you.

This protection is usually without explanation.

This Super Mind also knows of green pastures and still waters, figures of abundance and peace. It leads the responsive student, who listens in the Silence to its wisdom, and thus he is given opportunities, where without this Counsellor and Guide, he would be overcome with dangers and fruitless efforts and adventures.

Solomon, the greatest financier among the kings of Israel, had this super-consciousness connected with his outer consciousness, thus manifesting efficiently in his private, kingly, and financial affairs, so that he became the wealthiest and most glorious king in the House of Israel.
Sometimes all other avenues of activity or progress become closed to us and then moving into this only open avenue we meet with success, which could have been ours much earlier if we had but known something of the voice of the silence.

When you have established a unity with the Super-conscious Mind, you have with you a revealer, which in a quiet way makes known to you the heart and intent of all persons who come into your presence. The “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” the Devil in the garb of an angel, and the fox in the garb of a gentle dog are revealed to you in a measure sufficient to put you on guard.
This All-knowing Mind literally becomes a Counsellor, Advocate, and Guide. This inner voice, or intuition, will direct you wisely. It will also warn you and find a way of escape in every time of need.

In order that this may take place, it is important that you should have seasons of solitude, quietness, or silence in which you should allow no interruptions.

Every muscle should be relaxed and the mind withdrawn from all external things and given wholly to a receptive attitude, so that the Super Mind may come forth into manifestation and energize, illumine, and clarify the outer planes of conscious mind.

It is good practice to have a set time or times every day for this silence. You may have other moments of silence, such as a few minutes at your desk, in your parlor, or while riding in the street car or train.

Do not be discouraged if wonderful things do not occur in the Silence. These wonderful things usually occur after the Silence rather than in it.

Do not do the thinking yourself, but let the Infinite One think through you and for you.
At first when thoughts begin to come, they may not be very clear or very correct. Just listen. As the stream of thought flows on, it clarifies itself, and in a few moments you will be receiving wisdom that will help you in your life and work.

If you seem to receive no conscious thought at all, you may be sure that it is being registered on the Subconscious Mind and will be brought forth into the Conscious Mind when needed.
In the silence you become illuminated and inspired and are no longer as experimenter or speculator on the path of life.

In the silence, your experiences will be of a character pertinent to your evolution and unfoldment. Some will catch fertile thoughts and plans; others will have a feeling or impulse to do or not to do the thing they contemplate.

The idea and purpose of the silence is to make connection with the great storehouse of wisdom—to be charged with magnetic vibrations according to your specific need, much the same as charging an electrical storage battery. Thus, when you are low on wisdom, energy, or tact, go into the silence and replenish yourself.

This is charging yourself with power, so that you go back into the business world richly supplied with energy.

It is, thus, that you may go victoriously forward.

There are but few who find the path that really leads to the Holy Grail. It is a secret trail. The entrance is obscured. The careless, shiftless, non-concentrated mind passes it by. They who practice the Silence discover the entrance. They reach their goal.

A razor blade has penetrative power because of it extremely fine edge. It meets with little resistance in passing through and between the molecules of substance. The concentrated mind is one pointed, sharp, and penetrative and finds a way through hard problems; it thus dissolves and disintegrates the seemingly impossible.

Many a perplexed business man has turned the tide of failure into success by devoting a few minutes each day to silent meditation in his place of business. This accomplishes two purposes: It puts him into tune with the Universal Law and places the Law of Attraction into operation, which acts as a magnet in the same manner that honey in the blossom draws the honey bee.

The Silence is the University of the Master Mind. It is here that all wise men have received their wisdom. It is here that the greatest Teacher of all teachers instructs the devotee.

The true silence brings forth the hidden glory, just as the glory of the lily, hidden within the bud, is drawn out by the opening of the bud. So the wisdom and power hidden in man is drawn into expression—or bloom—through self-faith and the use of the silence. This is real education. The word education comes from the Latin word educio, which means “to draw out from within.”
If you make it a point to enjoy the silence just as much as you would a visit with a very dear friend, then you will get results much more readily.

The attitude should be one of earnest desire, solicitude, and determination.
To accomplish the greatest result, determine first your greatest desire.
Then concentrate upon that.
Affirm that it can be accomplished.
Affirm that heaven and earth lend you their assistance.
Know that you are not alone, but the indwelling Mind works with you, watches over you, and guides your thought, decisions, and actions.
Relax every muscle; be quiet.
Contemplate the Infinite resources at your command.
Great Captains of Industry have few intimates. They know that great thoughts, great actions, and great achievements are born in the silence.