Turn back to chapter VI (this post), and read again the story of the man who formed a mental image of his house, and you will get a fair idea of the initial step toward getting rich. You must form a clear and definite mental picture of what you want; you cannot transmit an idea unless you have it yourself.
You must have it before you can give it; and many people fail to impress Thinking Substance because they have themselves only a vague and misty concept of the things they want to do, to have, or to become.
It is not enough that you should have a general desire for wealth "to do good with"; every body has that desire.
It is not enough that you should have a wish to travel, see things, live more, etc. Everybody has those desires also. If you are going to send a wireless message to a friend, you would not send the letters of the alphabet in their order, and let him construct the message for himself; nor would you take words at random from the dictionary. You would send a coherent sentence; one which meant something. When you try to impress your wants upon Substance, remember that it must be done by a coherent statement; you must know what you want, and be definite.
You can never get rich, or start the creative power into action, by sending out unformed longings and vague desires.
Go over your desires just as the man I have described went over his house; see just what you want, and get a clear mental picture of it as you wish it to look when you get it.
That clear mental picture you must have continually in mind, as the sailor has in mind the port toward which he is sailing the ship; you must keep your face toward it all the time. You must no more lose sight of it than the steersman loses sight of the compass.
It is not necessary to take exercises in concentration, nor to set special times in prayer and affirmation, nor to "go into the silence," nor to do occult stunts of any kind. These things are well enough, but all you need is to know what you want, and to want it badly enough so that it will stay in your thoughts.
Spend as much of your leisure time as you can in contemplating your picture, but no one needs to take exercises to concentrate his mind on a thing which he really wants; it is the things you do not really care about which require effort to fix your attention upon them.
And unless you really want to get rich, so that the desire is strong enough to hold your thoughts directed to the purpose as the magnetic pole holds the needle of the compass, it will hardly be worth while for you to try to carry out the instructions given in this book.
The methods herein set forth are for people whose desire for riches is strong enough to overcome mental laziness and the love of ease, and make them work.
The more clear and definite you make your picture, then, and the more you dwell upon it, bringing out all its delightful details, the stronger your desire will be; and the stronger your desire, the easier it will be to hold your mind fixed upon the picture of what you want.
From: The Science of Getting Rich
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Daniel and I have been talking about this a lot recently - and I think that if it's really hard to get a clear and specific mental image of what it is that you want, it means that either you don't really want it, or you have issues about it that you need to deal with first before you can actually allow yourself to want (and have) that thing.
For example, my hot water heater requires that someone come over to my house and install it - which brings up issues of who do I trust to do a good job, and my house might be a mess, and I don't have a real driveway, and it all begins to seem overwhelming on some obscure level... I don't want to have to deal with it - truth be told - I want someone else to just step in and do it for me... all of it...
That would be great - and when I think about having someone step in and taking care of it FOR me, I feel more relaxed about the whole thing, but I don't believe a word of it because my experience of life is that "If I want it done, I have to do it myself."
So - clearly - issues have to be resolved before I can find myself in a place of going past really WANTING it to that place of KNOWING I can have it. And here's the thing - I WANT hot water - I just don't want to be responsible for FIXING it, I don't want to do the work of it... and as I'm writing this I realize that I also don't want to pay for it, nor do I want to be beholden to someone else who might pay for it, or install it. Sort of a catch 22... I want it and I don't want it at the same time. I just wish it had never stopped working... I just wish that my water would spontaneously run hot out of the hot water faucet, I just wish I could say "abracadabra" and it would be so...
As for the Sims 2 expansion packs, that was easy - it was all I could think about, no angst, no issues, no disbelief. I said I wanted them, I decided that nothing was going to stop me from having them, and voila! I haven't gotten ALL of them yet, but I'm well on the way. I didn't sit around wishing I could get them, I didn't try to conjure them up out of thin air, I didn't worry about spending money to buy them, nor did I have any reservations about someone just giving them to me... it was all very clean.
The difference between the two things is so telling! One was absolute certainty - no fear - no worries - no obstacles. The other is muddied up with questions about who? when? how much? what if? and other stuff.
Interesting, huh?
So, would it follow Two Feathers, the next step is to get in touch with gratitude for the opportunity to see these issues and to deal with them? That is what I'm gathering about thinking in a certain way. It would go something like - How exciting! I am given this great experience of noticing the many ways I am blocking a new hot water heater! Thank you formless stuff! I see how my circumstances and my lack of resources are all Self Created - how my thoughts and beliefs have impressed Formless Stuff with exactly what I have. Thank you Two Feathers! I am going to find the truth about all the areas of dissatisfaction I have in my own circumstances and discover what beliefs are blocking my higher hopes.
So in my experience even when you have a clear vision, a vision so clear you see yourself in it living the vision it still doesn't mean it is going to manifest. In doing this project and the others it has become clear that more than the vision is necessary, you must have no doubts that you really truely want this thing, that you really believe you deserve it and that you don't have a lot of baggage with it. Like that you are going to deprive or possibly deprive some one else by your having of this thing. I have found it amazing that you can want something so bad or think you do but when you are truely honest with your self you may find there is an aspect of the vision that you don't want. like you may want A and then consequence B is still okay but C no way. Our visions do have consequences you won't just be living in a picture your life will continue on from that point things will happen, change etc....Not sure if this rambling is making any sense but there it is.
Yes - Daniel - your rambling is making sense. And if a person tends to over think their visions, that too can be an obstacle - because you (actually - I'm thinking of myself here) start second guessing yourself, seeing all the potential for failure, the things that could go wrong, and next thing you know, the idea has lost it's appeal... that scenario happens to me a lot!
I guess the real question is how to figure out what it is that you REALLY want... and then how to ALLOW yourself to have it.
I truly enjoyed reading this dialogue; very refreshing to see people exploring possibilities rather than disqualifying the concept due to lack of immediate understanding. I love the comparison between the Sims and the waterheater, so true how we create our own limits; I've done this most of my life and can see it clearly. I got many things without a doubt but others never came to be because of limiting ideals. I also "overthink" my vision thereby never actually placing the order, which is exactly like expecting to recieve your food order at the pick-up window but you've not even decided what you want to eat, nor ordered it, nor moved to the pick-up window. I would have liked to add some helpful input here today, but you do have my immense gratitude for these wonderful posts. CHEERS!
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