Right And Wrong Thinking And Their Results
	How To Control Thinking <  Previous Contents Next  >

Said an old Hindu sage who lived so long ago that his name has been forgotten: " Let the wise man without fail restrain his mind." His counsel would have been better if he had said: " Let the wise man without, fail control his mind;" and perhaps that is what he meant, for his real meaning may have been lost in erroneous translation. Ever since his time, and probably for a long while before, there have been men who recognized with more or less distinctness and earnestness the advisability of mental control.

To be able to abandon those varieties of discordant and injurious thinking described in the preceding chapter would constitute a very desirable element of mental control and one which would lead directly to most admirable results through complete self- control. The question then becomes, how may we rid ourselves of discordant thinking?

The answer is very simple. Stop thinking discordant thoughts. Turn from one subject and give attention to another; change the thinking from one thing to another; drop out of the mind those discordant thoughts which occupy it and think other and harmonious thoughts.

Every one who observes his own mental actions and methods is aware of countless changes of thinking following one another in rapid succession in response to external suggestions or requirements. The frequency of these occurrences will surprise all those who have not turned their attention in this direction. They will also discover that, under all ordinary circumstances, these changes are made without the slightest appreciable effort. All this is normal, occurring in the usual course of mental action.

It is also ideal. It is toward such natural and ideal action as this that all intentional efforts to avoid discordant thinking should be directed. To make similar changes intentionally every time the discordant thoughts appear, thus dropping them out of the mind and giving the attention wholly to harmonious thoughts, is to comply with the rule in every particular and accomplish every desirable result.

The only unusual mental action involved in this course is that the impulse to the action is to come from within instead of from without. The change should be made purposely, promptly, because of one's own choice, and in response to recognized principle; but not in heedless compliance with the suggestions of external circumstances or conditions. If apprehension of either effort or difficulty arises in the mind when proposing to abandon discordant thinking, it should be instantly excluded because it will inevitably lead to some form of the very kind of thinking which is to be avoided. This course of training depends on choice, must be in response to choice, and should be accompanied by the least possible expenditure of will or effort.

So much is said about exercise of the will that the term has become enveloped in a cloud of words, its true meaning has become obscured to the ordinary mind, and its very existence is questioned by some of the best-trained intellects. However that may be, preceding v/hat is usually recognized as the will, or the determination to do, is choice which is without conscious effort, while exercise of the will is always accompanied by effort, sometimes severe. It all finally resolves itself into a question of action in response to choice, because choice lies at the foundation of all these actions, however necessary exercise of will may sometimes seem to be.

The requirement is merely to drop the discordant thought -- to let go of it as one lets go of a stone in the hand -- and this surely necessitates less exertion than to hold on. This act of dropping the discordant thought ought to be, and may be, nothing more than the abandonment of effort in response to choice, and it should not require any exercise of energy in "enforcing the behest of the will," for there ought not to be any of the strenuousness of "will" about it.

Control of the thinking is one of the primary actions of the mind and, like all such actions, can no more be described than one can tell another how to see or how to move. It is possible to say, "Look there," or, "Hand me the book," but it is impossible to instruct another how to see with the eye or how to move the hand. The three mental actions which are essential to this mental training are how to think, how to stop thinking any particular thought which may be in the mind, and how to change the thinking from one thought to another. Although there cannot be any direct explanation of these primary actions, yet, through experience, every one knows somewhat of how to accomplish them and does not need any instruction beyond the suggestion to begin.

The method is most clearly and definitely set forth by Strong when he says: "Suppose that, while thinking, I come within sight of some painful memory or inconvenient thought, and turn deliberately away, saying, ' No, I must not think of that;' surely, by so doing I cause the cessation of the corresponding brain-event as effectually as if I went at the cortex with a knife. It is as easy to turn the attention away from an idea as to turn the eyes away from an object. Nay more, it is as easy to turn the attention away from a sensation. To make a visual sensation lapse from consciousness, it is not necessary to look away, but only to think away."

Apropos of this subject, Edward Carpenter says: "If a pebble in our boot torments us, we expel it. We take off the boot and shake it out. And once the matter is fairly understood it is just as easy to expel an intruding and obnoxious thought from the mind. About this there ought to be no mistake, no two opinions. The thing is obvious, clear, and unmistakable. It should be as easy to expel an obnoxious thought from your mind as it is to shake a stone out of your shoe; and till a man can do that, it is just nonsense to talk about his ascendancy over nature, and all the rest of it. He is a mere slave and a prey to the bat-winged phantoms that flit through the corridors of his own brain."

President McCosh says: "Though a man may not be able to command his sensibilities directly, he has complete power over them indirectly. He can guide and control, if not the feeling itself, at least the idea, which is the channel in which it flows.... He may be able to banish the unholy idea by calling in a more elevating one; he may remove the object out of the way or remove out of the way of the object, and the flame left without its feeder will die out. A man can thus control his feelings; he is responsible for them, for their perversion, for their excess, and defect."

He who is really in earnest and perseveres in the practice, doing his best to stop his discordant thinking in ways which his own intelligence and experience will suggest, will learn the whole lesson. There is no secret about it, nor any copyright, nor patent. By inheritance it is the right of every human being, and every one who is in earnest will find the way to claim his inheritance and control his thinking. In practical mechanics, however much the boy may have heard or read, he does not know much about his work until he uses the tools, and by using them learns certain things that cannot be verbally communicated; so here, in the practice of these things, one may learn for himself vastly more than can be told in words. The earnest practitioner in mental as well as in physical training will gain an under- standing and a power which will enable him to do what seemed impossible at the outset.