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The Tenth Lesson: Sub-Consciousing.653
get rid of worry and anxiety attendant upon unsettled questions. But,
in fact, every one of us makes more or less use of this part of the mind
unconsciously, and not realizing the important part it plays in our mental
life. We are perplexed about a matter and keep it “on our minds” until we
are forced to lay it aside by reason of some other demand, or when we
sink to sleep. Often to our surprise we will find that when we next think of
it the matter has somehow cleared up and straightened itself out, and we
seem to have learned something about it that we did not know before. We
do not understand it, and are apt to dismiss it as “just one of those things.”
In these lessons we are attempting to explain some of “those things,” and
to enable you to use them consciously and understandingly, instead of by
chance, instinctively, and clumsily. We are teaching you Mastery of the Mind.
Now to apply the rule to another case. Suppose you wish to gather
together all the information that you possess relating to a certain subject.
In the first place it is certain that you know a very great deal more about
any subject than you think you do. Stored away in the various recesses of
the mind, or memory if you prefer that term, are stray bits of information
and knowledge concerning almost any subject. But these bits of information
are not associated with each other. You have never attempted to think
attentively upon the particular question before you, and the facts are not
corelated in the mind. It is just as if you had so many hundred pounds of
anything scattered throughout the space of a large warehouse, a tiny bit
here, and a tiny bit there, mixed up with thousands of other things.
You may prove this by sitting down some time and letting your thoughts
run along the line of some particular subject, and you will find emerging into
the field of consciousness all sorts of information that you had apparently
forgotten, and each fitting itself into its proper place. Every person has had
experiences of this kind. But the work of gathering together the scattered
scraps of knowledge is more or less tedious for the conscious mind, and the
sub-conscious mind will do the work equally well with the wear and tear on
the attention. In fact, it is the sub-conscious mind that always does the work,