 When the conscious ego, which is you, yourself, enters the subconscious during sleep, there are two objects in view. The first object is to carry into the subconscious the new ideas that have formed during the day and the second object is to recharge the system with life, power and energy. The subconscious supplies the life and the energy that is required to perpetuate the existence of the mentality and the personality, but to receive this energy the conscious ego must enter the subconscious, and should remain there, uninterruptedly, for six or seven hours out of every twenty-four, to secure the full measure of power. When sleep is interrupted the personality does not receive as much life as may be required to keep the system in the fullest and most perfect action; personal efforts will, therefore, become inferior. When all the conditions are provided for properly recuperating and recharging the system during sleep, and the subconscious is directed to steadily increase the supply of power, the personality will become stronger and more vigorous from year to year; instead of going down to weakness and age the personality will go on to greater strength, greater capacity, greater ability and greater power the longer you live. To go to sleep properly is to wake up feeling refreshed, but to go to sleep with all sorts of impressions in the mind and all sorts of conditions in the body is to wake up feeling stupid and depressed. To enter the subconscious with adverse impressions is to return to consciousness with similar conditions. Like causes always produce like effects. To aid the mind in purifying itself before going to sleep, attention should be concentrated upon the purest purity and the highest worth that can possibly be imagined, and to place the entire system in a state of peace, concentrate the thought of peace upon the brain center while gently drawing all the finer forces of mind toward that center. To think, with feeling, of the finer forces of mind during this process will produce immediate results. The practice of "sleeping on" difficult problems before definite decisions are made is a practice of great value, especially when the subconscious is properly directed in the matter, because the subconscious can "turn things over" more completely during sleep than during the waking state. To secure the best results hold clearly and serenely in mind the elements involved in the problem just as you are going to sleep and desire deeply, but without anxiety, to receive the correct answer upon awakening. The higher and the clearer the conception that is formed of the problem during the waking state the more readily can the subconscious work it out during sleep. The same is true in the various ideas that are formed during the day and that are taken into the great within either at sleep or during waking states of deep feeling. It is therefore extremely important to form the highest possible conception of everything that we think of during the day, and whatever attracts our attention should be considered from the very highest point of view. Live in the upper story of mind and give soul to all your thought; you will thereby form ideas with real quality and worth, and as those ideas are taken into the subconscious during sleep they will cause greater quality and worth to be developed in you. No person can afford to take a commonplace view of anything, nor to indulge in cheap thinking at any time; to do so is to place inferior seeds in the garden of the mind. There are days when the average person feels as if he amounted to practically nothing; his personality lacks energy and his mind is dull, stupid and confused. Cheap, superficial thinking a day or two before is the cause. Give inferior ideas to the subconscious, and the subconscious will, in the near future, not only cause you to feel incompetent and inferior, but your mind will temporarily be placed in a state where it actually becomes incompetent and inferior. To produce worthy ideas it is not necessary to always continue in profound or serious states of mind; the thought of worth is the thought that mind creates while attention dwells in the life of quality and soul, and while consciousness is thoroughly permeated with the desire to realize quality and soul in everything. Such thinking can be taken into all thought and all life, even into every pleasure. To try to enjoy pleasures while mind skims over the surface of life and thought is to fail to receive the joy that is joy, or the satisfaction that does satisfy; but when pleasures are entered into with the feeling of quality and finer life, even the simplest of joys become founts of supreme joy. Everything that we thoroughly enjoy we impress upon the subconscious; therefore, to enter into pleasure while mind is in the attitude of cheapness or inferiority is a mistake to be avoided under every circumstance. However, our pleasures map be used as channels through which the subconscious may be impressed and directed along lines of superior attainment, and pleasures that are employed in this manner will invariably give the greatest, the most satisfying and the most wholesome joy of all joys. |
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