You have only one mind, but your mind possesses two distinctive characteristics. The line of demarcation between the two is well known to all
thinking men and women today. The two functions of your mind are essentially unlike. Each is endowed with separate and distinct attributes and
powers. The nomenclature generally used to distinguish the two functions
of your mind is as follows: The objective and subjective mind, the conscious and subconscious mind, the waking and sleeping mind, the surface
self and the deep self, the voluntary mind and the involuntary mind, the
male and the female and many other terms. You will find the terms “conscious” and “subconscious” used to represent the dual nature of your
mind throughout this book.
An excellent way to get acquainted with the two functions of your mind is
to look upon your own mind as a garden. You are a gardener, and you are
planting seeds (thoughts) in your subconscious mind all day long, based
on your habitual thinking. As you sow in your subconscious mind, so shall
you reap in your body and environment.
Begin now to sow thoughts of peace, happiness, right action, good will
and prosperity. Think quietly and with interest on these qualities and accept them fully in your conscious reasoning mind. Continue to plant these
wonderful seeds (thoughts) in the garden of your mind and you will reap
a glorious harvest. Your subconscious mind may be likened to soil, which
will grow all kinds of seeds, good or bad. Do men gather grapes or thorns,
figs or thistles? Every thought is, therefore, a cause, and every condition
is an effect. For this reason, it is essential that you take charge of your
thoughts so as to bring forth only desirable conditions.
When your mind thinks correctly, when you understand the truth, when
the thoughts deposited in your subconscious mind are constructive. Harmonious and peaceful the magic working power of your subconscious will
respond and bring about harmonious conditions, agreeable surroundings
and the best of everything. When you begin to control your thought processes, you can apply the powers of your subconscious to any problem or
difficulty. In other words, you will actually be consciously cooperating with
the infinite power and omnipotent law, which governs all things.
Look around you wherever you live and you will notice that the vast majority of mankind lives in the world without and the more enlightened men
are intensely interested in the world within. Remember, it is the world
within, namely your thoughts, feelings and imagery that makes your
world without. It is, therefore, the only creative power and everything
that you find in your world of expression has been created by you in the
inner world of your mind, consciously or unconsciously.
A knowledge of the interaction of your conscious and subconscious minds
will enable you to transform your whole life. In order to change external
conditions, you must change the cause. Most men try to change conditions and circumstances by working with conditions and circumstances. To
remove discord, confusion, lack and limitation, you must remove the
cause and the cause is the way you are using your conscious mind. In
other words, the way you are thinking and picturing in your mind.
You are living in a fathomless sea of infinite riches. Your subconscious is
every sensitive to your thoughts. Your thoughts form the mold or matrix
through which the Infinite Intelligence, wisdom, vital forces and energies
of your subconscious flow. The practical application of the laws of your
mind as illustrated in each chapter in this book will cause you to experience abundance for poverty, wisdom for superstition and ignorance, peace
for pain, joy for sadness, light for darkness, harmony for discord, faith
and confidence for fear, success for failure and freedom from the law of
averages. Certainly, there can be no more wonderful blessing than these
from a mental, emotional and material standpoint.
Most of the great scientists, artists, poets, singers, writers and inventors
have a deep understanding of the workings of the conscious and subconscious minds.
One time Caruso, the great operatic tenor, was struck with stage fright.
He said his throat was paralyzed due to spasms caused by intense fear,
which constricted the muscles in his throat.
Perspiration poured copiously down his face. He was ashamed because in
a few minutes he had to go out on the stage, yet he was shaking with
fear and trepidation. He said, “They will laugh at me. I can’t sing.” Then
he shouted in the presence of those behind the stage, “The Little Me
wants to strangle the Big Me within.”
He said to the Little Me, “Get out of here, the Big Me wants to sing
through me.”
By the Big Me, he meant the limitless power and wisdom of his subconscious mind. He began to shout, “Get out, get out, the Big Me is going to
sing!”
His subconscious mind responded, releasing the vital forces within him.
When the call came, he walked out on the stage and sang gloriously and
majestically, enthralling the audience.
It is obvious to you now that Caruso must have understood the two levels
of mind – the conscious or rational, and the subconscious or irrational level. Your subconscious mind is reactive and responds to the nature of your thoughts. When your conscious mind (the Little Me) is full of fear, worry
and anxiety, the negative emotions engendered in your subconscious
mind (the Big Me) are released and flood the conscious mind with a sense
of panic, foreboding and despair. When this happens, you can, like Caruso, speak affirmatively and with a deep sense of authority to the irrational
emotions generated in your deeper mind as follows: “Be still, be quiet, I
am in control, you must obey me, you are subject to my command, you
cannot intrude where you do not belong.”
It is fascinating and intensely interesting to observe how you can speak
authoritatively and with conviction to the irrational movement of your
deeper self, bringing silence, harmony and peace to your mind. The subconscious is subject to the conscious mind, and that is why it is called
subconscious or subjective.