The Science of Getting Rich By Wallace Delois Wattles --- 09 CHAPTER 9. HOW TO USE THE WILL

CHAPTER 9. HOW TO USE THE WILL

TO set about getting rich in a scientific way, you do not try to apply your
will power to anything outside of yourself.
Your have no right to do so, anyway.
It is wrong to apply your will to other men and women, in order to get
them to do what you wish done.
It is as flagrantly wrong to coerce people by mental power as it is to
coerce them by physical power. If compelling people by physical force to
do things for you reduces them to slavery, compelling them by mental
means accomplishes exactly the same thing; the only difference is in
methods. If taking things from people by physical force is robbery, then
taking things by mental force is robbery also; there is no difference in
principle.
You have no right to use your will power upon another person, even "for
his own good"; for you do not know what is for his good. The science of
getting rich does not require you to apply power or force to any other
person, in any way whatsoever. There is not the slightest necessity for
doing so; indeed, any attempt to use your will upon others will only tend
to defeat your purpose.
You do not need to apply your will to things, in order to compel them to
come to you.
That would simply be trying to coerce God, and would be foolish and
useless, as well as irreverent.
You do not have to compel God to give you good things, any more than
you have to use your will power to make the sun rise.
You do not have to use your will power to conquer an unfriendly deity, or
to make stubborn and rebellious forces do your bidding.
Substance is friendly to you, and is more anxious to give you what you
want than you are to get it.
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To get rich, you need only to use your will power upon yourself.
When you know what to think and do, then you must use your will to
compel yourself to think and do the right things. That is the legitimate
use of the will in getting what you want—to use it in holding yourself to
the right course. Use your will to keep yourself thinking and acting in the
Certain Way.
Do not try to project your will, or your thoughts, or your mind out into
space, to "act" on things or people.
Keep your mind at home; it can accomplish more there than elsewhere.
Use your mind to form a mental image of what you want, and to hold
that vision with faith and purpose; and use your will to keep your mind
working in the Right Way.
The more steady and continuous your faith and purpose, the more
rapidly you will get rich, because you will make only POSITIVE
impressions upon Substance; and you will not neutralize or offset them
by negative impressions.
The picture of your desires, held with faith and purpose, is taken up by
the Formless, and permeates it to great distances-throughout the
universe, for all I know.
As this impression spreads, all things are set moving toward its
realization; every living thing, every inanimate thing, and the things yet
uncreated, are stirred toward bringing into being that which you want.
All force begins to be exerted in that direction; all things begin to move
toward you. The minds of people, everywhere, are influenced toward
doing the things necessary to the fulfilling of your desires; and they work
for you, unconsciously.
But you can check all this by starting a negative impression in the
Formless Substance. Doubt or unbelief is as certain to start a movement
away from you as faith and purpose are to start one toward you. It is by
not understanding this that most people who try to make use of "mental
science" in getting rich make their failure. Every hour and moment you
spend in giving heed to doubts and fears, every hour you spend in worry,
every hour in which your soul is possessed by unbelief, sets a current
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away from you in the whole domain of intelligent Substance. All the
promises are unto them that believe, and unto them only. Notice how
insistent Jesus was upon this point of belief; and now you know the
reason why.
Since belief is all important, it behooves you to guard your thoughts; and
as your beliefs will be shaped to a very great extent by the things you
observe and think about, it is important that you should command your
attention.
And here the will comes into use; for it is by your will that you determine
upon what things your attention shall be fixed.
If you want to become rich, you must not make a study of poverty.
Things are not brought into being by thinking about their opposites.
Health is never to be attained by studying disease and thinking about
disease; righteousness is not to be promoted by studying sin and
thinking about sin; and no one ever got rich by studying poverty and
thinking about poverty.
Medicine as a science of disease has increased disease; religion as a
science of sin has promoted sin, and economics as a study of poverty will
fill the world with wretchedness and want.
Do not talk about poverty; do not investigate it, or concern yourself with
it. Never mind what its causes are; you have nothing to do with them.
What concerns you is the cure.
Do not spend your time in charitable work, or charity movements; all
charity only tends to perpetuate the wretchedness it aims to eradicate.
I do not say that you should be hard hearted or unkind, and refuse to
hear the cry of need; but you must not try to eradicate poverty in any of
the conventional ways.
Put poverty behind you, and put all that pertains to it behind you, and
"make good."
Get rich; that is the best way you can help the poor.
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And you cannot hold the mental image which is to make you rich if you
fill your mind with pictures of poverty. Do not read books or papers
which give circumstantial accounts of the wretchedness of the tenement
dwellers, of the horrors of child labor, and so on. Do not read anything
which fills your mind with gloomy images of want and suffering.
You cannot help the poor in the least by knowing about these things; and
the wide-spread knowledge of them does not tend at all to do away with
poverty.
What tends to do away with poverty is not the getting of pictures of
poverty into your mind, but getting pictures of wealth into the minds of
the poor.
You are not deserting the poor in their misery when you refuse to allow
your mind to be filled with pictures of that misery.
Poverty can be done away with, not by increasing the number of well to
do people who think about poverty, but by increasing the number of poor
people who purpose with faith to get rich.
The poor do not need charity; they need inspiration.
Charity only sends them a loaf of bread to keep them alive in their
wretchedness, or gives them an entertainment to make them forget for
an hour or two; but inspiration will cause them to rise out of their
misery. If you want to help the poor, demonstrate to them that they can
become rich; prove it by getting rich yourself.
The only way in which poverty will ever be banished from this world is
by getting a large and constantly increasing number of people to practice
the teachings of this book.
People must be taught to become rich by creation, not by competition.
Every man who becomes rich by competition throws down behind him
the ladder by which he rises, and keeps others down; but every man who
gets rich by creation opens a way for thousands to follow him, and
inspires them to do so.
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You are not showing hardness of heart or an unfeeling disposition when
you refuse to pity poverty, see poverty, read about poverty, or think or
talk about it, or to listen to those who do talk about it.
Use your will power to keep your mind OFF the subject of poverty, and
to keep it fixed with faith and purpose ON the vision of what you want.