26.
Experience in imagination, with all the distinctness of reality, what would be experienced in the flesh were you to achieve your goal; and you shall, in time, meet it in the flesh as you met it in your imagination.
Feed the mind with premises, that is, assertions presumed to be true, because assumptions, though unreal to the senses, if persisted in, until they have the feeling of reality, will harden into facts.
To an assumption, all means which promote its realization, are good. It influences the behavior of all by inspiring in all the movements, the actions, and the words which tend towards its fulfillment.
27.
To reach a higher level of being, you must assume a higher concept of yourself. If you will not imagine yourself as other than what you are, then you remain as you are,
“for if ye believe not that I AM He,
ye shall die in your sins.”
If you do not believe that you are He, the person you want to be, then you remain as you are.
Through the faithful systematic cultivation of the feeling of the wish fulfilled, desire becomes the promise of its own fulfillment.
The assumption of the feeling of the wish fulfilled makes the future dream a present fact.
28.
Assume that you are that which you want to be. Experience in imagination what you would experience in the flesh were you already that which you want to be. Remain faithful to your assumption, so that you define yourself as that which you have assumed.
Things have no life if they are severed from their roots, and our consciousness, our “I AMness,” is the root of all that springs in our world.
“If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins”.
That is, if I do not believe that I am already that which I desire to be, then I remain as I am and die in my present concept of self.
There is no power, outside of the consciousness of man, to resurrect and make alive that which man desires to experience.
That man who is accustomed to call up at will, whatever images he pleases, will be, by virtue of the power of his imagination, master of his fate.
“I AM the resurrection, and the life:
he that believeth in me,
though he were dead, yet shall he live.”
“Ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free.”
29.
The unconsciousness of sleep is the normal state of the subconscious. Because all things come from within yourself, and your conception of yourself determines that which comes, you should always feel the wish fulfilled before you drop off to sleep. You never draw out of the deep of yourself that which you want; you always draw that which you are, and you are that which you feel yourself to be as well as that which you feel as true of others.
To be realized, then, the wish must be resolved into the feeling of being or having or witnessing the state sought. This is accomplished by assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled. The feeling which comes in response to the question
“How would I feel were my wish realized?”
is the feeling which should monopolize and immobilize your attention as you relax into sleep. You must be in the consciousness of being or having that which you want to be or to have before you drop off to sleep.
Once asleep, man has no freedom of choice. His entire slumber is dominated by his last waking concept of self. It follows, therefore, that he should always assume the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction before he retires in sleep,
30.
The drama of life is a psychological one, in which all the conditions, circumstances and events of your life are brought to pass by your assumptions.
Since your life is determined by your assumptions, you are forced to recognize the fact that you are either a slave to your assumptions or their master. To become the master of your assumptions is the key to undreamed of freedom and happiness.
You can attain this mastery by deliberate conscious control of your imagination.
You determine your assumptions in this way:
Form a mental image, a picture of the state desired, of the person you want to be. Concentrate your attention upon the feeling that you are already that person. First, visualize the picture in your consciousness. Then feel yourself to be in that state as though it actually formed your surrounding world.
By your imagination that which was a mere mental image is changed into a seemingly solid reality.
The great secret is a controlled imagination and a well sustained attention firmly and repeatedly focused on the object to be accomplished. It cannot be emphasized too much that, by creating an ideal within your mental sphere, by assuming that you are already that ideal, you identify yourself with it and thereby transform yourself into its image, thinking from the ideal instead of thinking of the ideal.
Every state is already there as “mere possibilities” as long as we think of them, but as overpoweringly real when we think from them.
This was called by the ancient teachers
“Subjection to the will of God”
or
“Resting in the Lord”,
and the only true test of “Resting in the Lord” is that all who do rest are inevitably transformed into the image of that in which they rest, thinking from the wish fulfilled.
You become according to your resigned will, and your resigned will is your concept of yourself and all that you consent to and accept as true. You, assuming the feeling of your wish fulfilled and continuing therein, take upon yourself the results of that state; not assuming the feeling of your wish fulfilled, you are ever free of the results.