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The Eleventh Lesson: Subconscious Character Building.661
the user always thinks of the meaning of the words, and makes a mental
picture of the quality expressed by them, instead of merely repeating them
parrot fashion.
The Yogi student is trained gradually, until he acquires the power of
conscious direction of the subconscious mind in the building up process,
which power comes to anyone—Oriental or Occidental—who will take
the trouble to practice. In fact, nearly everyone possesses and actively uses
this power, although he may not be aware of it. One’s character is largely
the result of the quality of thoughts held in the mind, and of the mental
pictures or ideals entertained by the person. The man who constantly sees
and thinks of himself as unsuccessful and downtrodden is very apt to grow
ideals of thought forms of these things until his whole nature is dominated
by them, and his every act works toward the objectification of the thoughts.
On the contrary, the man who makes an ideal of success and accomplishment,
finds that his whole mental nature seems to work toward that result—the
objectification of the ideal. And so it is with every other ideal. The person
who builds up a mental ideal of Jealousy will be very apt to objectify the
same, and to unconsciously create condition that will give his Jealousy
food upon which to feed. But this particular phase of the subject, properly
belongs to our next lesson. This Eleventh Lesson is designed to point out the
way by which people may mould their characters in any way they desire—
supplanting undesirable characteristics by desirable ones, and developing
desirable ideals into active characteristics. The mind is plastic to him who
knows the secret of its manipulation.
The average person recognizes his strong and weak points of character,
but is very apt to regard them as fixed and unalterable, or practically so.
He thinks that he “is just as the Lord made him,” and that is the end of it. He
fails to recognize that his character is being unconsciously modified every
day by association with others, whose suggestions are being absorbed and
acted upon. And he fails to see that he is moulding his own character by
taking interest in certain things, and allowing his mind to dwell upon them.