As a part of this journey, for the first time in my life, I have been reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Yes for years folks that I know that have been much more succesful in their lives than I have been ave told me that I need to read it. I've listened to the audio version several times in the past but I never really sat down with my journal and studied the written words. It has been amazing.
I have found the book at times very enlightening, at other times I realized that I already knew what he was teaching but never really considered it on a deep personal level.
In one of the chapters he discusses faith. Now for most of my life I thought I knew what faith was, especially when taken in the context of religious Faith. Now I realize that faith is not just believing in something but faith is rather a mental state.
I reflect back twenty or so years ago, I was in a place in my life where my religious faith was being challenged by several outside forces. At the time my "faith" was just something that I was taught by my parents and my parochial school teachers. It was just something that I assumed was so because that is what I was always taught.
Once I was challenged by folks outside of my circle of influence and I couldn't answer why I believed what I believed I decided I need to find the answers. Not just so I could answer their questions but to also answer my own.
What I found, as I sought out the answers and was able to confidently answer the questions one by one, my Faith grew.
Fast forward to today.
As I have always understood, faith is a state of mind, What I did not realize and what Mr Hill so eloquently states in Chapter 3 of his book, Think and Grow Rich, defines faith as . . .
- the starting point of the achievement of all of ones goals
- the basis of all "miracles," and all mysteries which can not be analyzed by the rules of science
- the only known antidote for failure
- the element, the "chemical" which, when mixed with prayer, gives one direct communication with God
- the element which transfers the ordinary vibration of thought, created by the finite mind of mankind, into the spiritual equivalent
- the only agency through which the cosmic faces of infinite intelligence can be harnessed and used by man
"Faith is a state of mind which may be induced, or created, by affirmation or repeated instructions to the subconscious mind." This precisely explains why, as I studied the principles and history of my religious Faith, that Faith grew more strongly.
Now faith applies to more than just region. We have faith in many things in our life. Faith that our spouse will be true to us, faith that our employer will pay us in a timely manor, faith that the sun will rise tomorrow.
Mr Hill points out in his book how we can utilize faith to reach our goals no mater what that goal may be. He states that "through auto-suggestion you may convince the subconscious mind that you believe you will receive that for which you ask, and it will act upon that belief, which your subconscious mind passes back to you in the form of faith, followed by definite plans for procuring that which you desire."
So just as it was when I studied my religious beliefs and my faith grew stronger, you can use auto-suggestion to build your faith in your ability to accomplish a goal. Mr Hill states that "repetition of affirmation of orders to your subconscious mind is the only known method of voluntary development of the emotion of faith."
Your subconscious mind can't determine if the information coming into it is real or not. It is a repository of information that becomes available to you conscious mind when the conscious mind finds itself in situations, real or imagined, that the subconscious mind has stored away. The conscious mind then takes that information and comes to a decision on how to act based on the information. At times, when there isn't time to consciously think about how to react to a situation your mind recalls similar situations from the subconscious storehouse and uses that information to react, such as the emotions of fear, or pain.
So how can I use this information to benefit goal setting.
Since the subconscious mind can't differentiate if an experience is real or imagined Mr Hill suggests that "all thought which have been emotionalized (given feeling) and mixed with faith, begin immediately to translate themselves into their physical equivalent or counterpart." He goes on to state in order to make it more realistic you have to act as if you already had whatever it is that you wanted to achieve.
"The subconscious mind will transmute into it's physical equivalent, by the most direct and practical media available any order which is given to it in a state of belief or faith that the order will be carried out."
Thoughts which are mixed with any of the feelings of emotion, but especially faith make up the magnetic force which attracts other or similar thoughts. Any thought, idea, plan or purpose which one holds in ones mind attracts a host of its relatives. It then adds these relatives to its own force and frows until it becomes the dominating MOTIVATIONAL MASTER, Dharma, of the person in whose mind it has been housed.
Now that one has the burning desire to achieve a goal all that is left is to start taking steps toward its achievement. Once on the road toward success and continued action toward the end goal, that burning desire, through the Law of Attraction will propel you toward success.