THE DIVINITY OF DESIRE

“Whatever the soul is taught to expect, that it will build.”

Our heart longings, our soul aspirations, are something more than mere vaporings of the imagination or idle dreams. They are prophecies, predictions, couriers, forerunners of things which can become realities. They are indicators of our possibilities. They measure the height of our aim, the range of our efficiency.

What we yearn for, earnestly desire and strive to bring about, tends to become a reality. Our ideals are the foreshadowing outlines of realities behind them — the substance of the things hoped for.

The sculptor knows that his ideal is not a mere fantasy of his imagination, but that it is a prophecy, a foreshadowing of that which will carve itself in “marble real.”

When we begin to desire a thing, to yearn for it with all our hearts, we begin to establish relationship with it in proportion to the strength and persistency of our longing and intelligent effort to realize it.

The trouble with us is that we live too much in the material side of life, and not enough in the ideal. We should learn to live mentally in the ideal which, we wish to make real. if we want, for example, to keep young, we should live in the mental state of youth; to be beautiful, we should live more in the mental state of beauty.

The advantage of living in the ideal is that all imperfections, physical, mental, and moral, are eliminated. We can not see old age because old age is incompleteness, decrepitude, and these qualities can not exist in the ideal.

In the ideal, everything is youthful and beautiful; there is no suggestion of decay, of ugliness. The habit of living in the ideal, therefore, helps us wonderfully because it gives a perpetual pattern of the perfection for which we are striving. It increases hope and faith in our ultimate perfection and divinity, because in our vision we see glimpses of the reality which we instinctively feel must sometime, somewhere, be ours.

The habit of thinking and asserting things as we would like to have them, or as they ought to be, and of stoutly claiming our wholeness or completeness — believing that we can not lack any good thing because we are one with the All Good,—supplies the pattern which the life-processes within us will reproduce. Keep constantly in your mind the ideal of the man or woman you would like to become. Hold the ideal of your efficiency and wholeness, and instantly strangle every disease image or suggestion of inferiority. Never allow yourself to dwell upon your weaknesses, deficiencies, or failures. Holding firmly the ideal and struggling vigorously to attain it will help you to realize it.

There is a tremendous power in the habit of expectancy, of believing that we shall realize our ambition; that our dreams will come true.

There is no more uplifting habit than that of bearing a hopeful attitude, of believing that things are going to turn out well and not ill; that we are going to succeed and not fail; that no matter what may or may not happen, we are going to be happy.

There is nothing else so helpful as the carrying of this optimistic, expectant attitude — the attitude which always looks for and expects the best, the highest, the happiest — and never allowing oneself to get into a pessimistic - discouraged mood.

Believe with all your heart that you will do what you were made to do. Never for an instant harbor a doubt of it. Drive it out of your mind if it seeks entrance. Entertain only the friend thoughts or ideals of the thing you are determined to achieve. Reject all thought enemies, all discouraging moods — everything which would even suggest failure or unhappiness.

It does not matter what you are trying to do or to be, always assume an expectant, hopeful, optimistic attitude regarding it. You will be surprised to see how you will grow in all your faculties, and how you will improve generally.

When the mind has once formed the habit of holding cheerful, happy, prosperous pictures, it will not be easy to form the opposite habit. If our children could only acquire this one habit, it would revolutionize our civilization very quickly and advance our life standards immeasurably. A mind so trained would always be in a condition to exercise its maximum power and overcome inharmony, unkindness and the hundred and one enemies of our peace, comfort, efficiency, and success.

The very habit of expecting that the future is full of good things for you, that you are going to be prosperous and happy, that you are going to have a fine family, a beautiful home, and are going to stand for something, is the best kind of capital with which to start life.

What we try persistently to express we tend to achieve, even though it may not seem likely or even possible. If we always try to express the ideal, the thing we would like to come true in our lives, whether it be robust health, a noble character, or a superb career, if we visualize it as vividly as possible and try with all our might to realize it, it is much more likely to come to us than if we do not.

Many people allow their desires and longings to fade out. They do not realize that the very intensity and persistency of desire increases the power to realize their dreams. The constant effort to keep the desire alive increases the capacity to realize the vision.

It does not matter how improbable or how far away this realization may seem, or how dark the prospects may be, if we visualize them as best we can, as vividly as possible, hold tenaciously to them and vigorously struggle to attain them, they will gradually become actualized, realized in the life. But a desire, a longing without endeavor, a yearning abandoned or held indifferently will vanish without realization.

It is only when desire crystallizes into resolve, however, that it is effective. It is the desire coupled with the vigorous determination to realize it that produces the creative power. It is the yearning, the longing and striving together, that produce results.

We are constantly increasing or decreasing our efficiency by the quality and character of our thoughts, emotions, and ideals. If we could always hold the ideal of wholeness and think of ourselves as perfect beings, even as He is perfect, any tendency to disease anywhere would be neutralized by this restorative healing force.

Think and say only that which you wish to become true. People who are always excusing themselves; constantly saying that they are tired, used up, played out, “all in,” that they are all out of kilter somewhere; that they are always unfortunate, unlucky; that fate seems to be against them; that they are poor and always expect to be; that they have worked hard and tried to get ahead, but could not, little realize that they are etching these black pictures — enemies of their peace, happiness, and success, and the very things which they ought to wipe out of their minds forever — deeper and deeper into their consciousness, and are making it all the more certain that they will be realized in their lives. Never for an instant admit that you are sick, weak, or ill unless you wish to experience these conditions, for the very thinking of them helps them to get a stronger hold upon you. We are all the products of our own thoughts. Whatever we concentrate upon, that we are. The daily habit of picturing oneself as a superb man sent to earth with a divine mission, and with the ability and the opportunity to deliver it grandly, gives a marvelous confidence, uplifting power and perpetual encouragement.

If you wish to improve yourself in any particular, visualize the quality as vividly and as tenaciously as possible and hold a superior ideal along the line of your ambition. Keep this persistently in the mind until you feel its uplift and realization in your life. Gradually the weak, imperfect man, which mistakes, Sins and vicious living have made, will be replaced by the ideal man; your other, better God-self.

Every life follows its ideal; is colored by it; takes on its character; becomes like it. You can read a man’s character if you know his ideal, for this always dominates his life.

Our ideals are great character-molders, and have a tremendous 1ife-shaping influence. Our heart’s habitual desire soon shows itself in the face; out-pictures itself in the life. We can not long keep from the face that which habitually lives in our minds.

We develop the quality of the thought, emotion, ideal, or ambition which takes the strongest hold upon us. Therefore, you should let everything in you point toward superiority, nobility. Let there be an upward trend in your thinking. Resolve that you will never have anything to do with inferiority in your thoughts or your actions; that whatever you do shall bear the stamp of excellence.

This upreaching of the mind, this stretching of the mentality toward higher ideals and grander things, has an elevating, transforming influence which tends to lift the whole life to higher levels.

Human life is so constructed that we live largely upon hope; the faith that runs ahead and sees what the physical eye can not see.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the outline of the image itself; the real substance, not merely a mental image. There is something back of the faith, back of the hope, back of the heart yearnings; there is a reality to match our legitimate longing.

What we believe is coming to us is a tremendous creative motive. The dream of home, of prosperity, the expectancy of being a person of influence, of standing for something, of carrying weight in our community, — all these things are powerful creative motives.

Your whole thought current must be set in the direction of your life purpose. The great miracles of civilization are wrought by thought concentration. Live in the very soul of expectation of better things, in the conviction that something large, grand, and beautiful will await you if your efforts are intelligent, if your mind is kept in a creative condition and you struggle upward to your goal. Live in the conviction that you are eternally progressing, advancing toward something higher, better, in every atom of your being.

Many people have an idea that it is dangerous to indulge their dreaming faculties, their imagination, very much, for fear that in doing so they would become impracticable; but these faculties are just as sacred as any others we possess. They were given us for a divine purpose; so that we could get glimpses of intangible realities. They enable us to live in the ideal, even when we are compelled to work in the midst of a disagreeable or inhospitable environment.

Our dreaming capacity gives us a peep into the glorious realities that await us further on. It is the evidence of things possible to us.

Building air castles should no longer be looked upon as an idle, meaningless pastime. We first build our castles in our consciousness; picture them in detail in our ambition, before we put foundations under them and reality into them.

Dreaming is not always castle-building. Every real castle, every home, every building was an air castle first. Legitimate dreaming is creative; it is bringing into reality our desires; the things for which we long and hope. A building would be impossible without the plans of an architect; it must be created mentally. The architect sees behind the plans the building in all its perfection and beauty.

Whatever comes to us in life we create first in our mentality. As the building is a reality in all its details in the architect’s mind before a stone or brick is laid, so we create mentally everything which later becomes a reality in our achievement.

Our visions are the plans of the possible life structure; but they will end in plans if we do not follow them up with a vigorous effort to make them real; just as the architect’s plans will end in his drawings if they are not followed up and made real by the builder.

All men who have achieved great things have been dreamers, and what they have accomplished has been just in proportion to the vividness, the energy and persistency with which they visualized their ideals; held to their dreams and struggled to make them come true.

Do not give up your dream because it is apparently not being realized; because you can not see it coming true. Cling to your vision with all the tenacity you can muster. Keep it bright; do not let the bread-and-butter side of life cloud your ideal or dim it. Keep in an ambition-arousing atmosphere. Read the books which will stimulate your ambition. Get close to people who have done what you are trying to do, and try to absorb the secret of their success.

This mental visualizing of the ideal as vividly and as sharply as possible is the mental molding of the thing that will finally match your vision with its reality; that will make your dream come true.

Take a little time before retiring at night and get by yourself. Sit quietly and think and dream to your heart’s content. Do not be afraid of your vision, or of your power to dream, for “without a vision the people perish.” The faculty to dream was not given to mock you. There is a reality back of it. It is a divine gift intended to give you a glimpse of the grand things in store for you and to lift you out of the common into the uncommon; out of hampering, iron conditions into ideal ones, and to show you that these things can become realities in your life. These glimpses into paradise are intended to keep us from getting discouraged by our failures and disappointments.

I do not mean fanciful, ephemeral pipe dreaming, but real, legitimate desire and the sacred longings of the soul, which are given us as constant reminders that we can make our lives sublime; that no matter how disagreeable or unfriendly our surroundings may be, we can lift ourselves into the ideal conditions which we see in our vision.

There is a divinity behind our legitimate desires.

By the desires that have divinity in them, I do not refer to the things that we want but do not need; I do not refer to the desires that turn to dead-sea fruit on our lips or to ashes when eaten, but to the legitimate desires of the soul for the realization of those ideals, the longing for full, complete self-expression, for the time and opportunity for the weaving of the pattern shown us in the moment of our highest transfiguration.

“A man will remain a rag picker as long he has only a rag picker’s vision.”

Our mental attitude, our heart’s desire, is our perpetual prayer which Nature answers. She takes it for granted that we desire what our heart asks for — that what we want we are headed toward, and she helps us to it. People little realize that their desires are their perpetual prayers — not head prayers, but heart prayers — and that they are granted.