A Matchstick a Horse and Man: Chapter Eight

DOWN-TO-EARTH DETAILS

Do you know, Family, that in spite of all the Thought Bricks teaching, Students still give me the hint, at times, that they are not really sure if thoughts have power or not? For instance, they tell me that, if a thing they are hoping and praying for does not come to them very quickly, they lose heart. Others say that they know what they want will come to them in the future, so they are being very patient about it and just waiting for it to appear.

Now, if they wanted, say, a wardrobe or, for a woman, a handmade rug, they would not think of just hoping
for it, would they? Nor would they get despondent if, after just hoping, it did not come to them? They would set to work and make it and, though the hours spent on it might be long, they would be contented in the knowledge that every hour of work brought what they wanted nearer. You see, then, that remarks such as those mentioned above reveal that the writers could not have seen thoughtpower in the same practical light as making a wardrobe or a wool rug?

Are you one of these? Do you, perhaps, think that there is no concrete, down-to-earth proof that thought
building really builds something? Well, one could not have anything more concrete nor down-to-earth than a dictionary, could one? So let us look at one and see what this has to tell us on the subject.

Let’s look up the word “conceive” first. Of course, we all know the most common use of this word. A child is conceived. Then what happens? Well, we are quite sure something will happenand it does. Long months go by, but nobody doubts that something will happen. Presently, a child is born. What does our dictionary say about the word, “born”? It says: “To come into the world by birth.”

Now let us look at the other meaning of the word “conceive”. Our dictionary says: “Pregnant. Form in the mind. Imagine. Formulate. Express.” So when we have a thought, we conceive something; we give it form in the mind; we imagine it, or give it an image.

Looking up “Pregnant” in our dictionary we find: “With child. Teeming with ideas. Imaginative. Fruitful in results.” The word “Imagine”, we see, means: To conceive; to form a mental image.” And when we look up “Imagination” we find it is “The creative faculty of the mind.” So here is an ordinary, down-to-earth book giving you Truth and who can doubt a dictionary or think it ” too fanciful for words”

So now let us group all these things together and get a very clear, solid, practical, down-to-earth picture of what happens when we think. We first conceive a thought that is, we become aware of something we would like. Now when we conceive a thought. we give it form. If we let it drift away and do not think of it again, that form dissolves. But if we hold to that thought and keep on thinking that thought, we definitely keep the form alive; the more we think of it and see it mentally the more solid the form grows and the more enduring; the more we imagine it, the clearer and stronger the image becomes. Sooner or later what we have conceived must be bornor “come into the world.”

Something always follows a thought conceived and held toand that something is the birth or manifestation of what we have conceived. (That is why we have to be so careful not to brood over depressing, unwanted things.) You may ask: “But how can I know this will all happen as you say?” “Because,” I reply, “it has been an established fact for so long that words have been chosen to describe the process in the language and are recorded in the dictionary.” Could anything be plainer than that? Dictionaries are not made up of fancies, but facts.

So now, my friends, conceive some thoughts of your own; be “teeming with ideas” and” fruitful in results”.

– Bernard