Robert Collier - The Greatest Works of Robert Collier

If he will do that, if he will bear in mind that matter as such has no feeling, no intelligence; that it is the mind that feels, the mind that directs, and therefore he has nothing to fear from any external causes, his fear of the disease will vanish. And the patient does not exist who will not speedily recover when his fear of the disease is gone.

"Verily, verily, I say unto you," said Jesus, "if a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." And again—"This is the life eternal." “Is,” you will notice, not "shall be."

"The mind is Good's way of utilizing His energy," says the Rev. William T. Walsh, Rector of St. Luke's Church, New York City, in his book "Scientific Spiritual Healing." "God evolved the subconscious mind. It is His gift to us like all else that we possess, and because it is from Him we should give thanks and learn to use it intelligently.

"God has so fashioned us that we do not have to give conscious attention to the vital processes. He has given us what is called the subconscious mind which looks after all the vital functions. This mind can receive commands from us and has wonderful ability to carry them out, for it is a law that every thought tends to realize itself subconsciously in the body.

"If you allow evil thoughts to remain, they are received by the subconscious which tends to realize them in the body just as much as though they were good, wholesome, health-giving spiritual thoughts. For remember, the subconscious does not reason and judge. It only receives and obeys."

When you have an accident, don't immediately think that you must be hurt. On the contrary, deny at once that you can be hurt. The denial will take away the creative power of your thought from any damaging condition. More than that, if you will immediately call to mind the fact that the only image of your body that Universal Mind holds is a perfect image, and that this is the image on which your; subconscious mind is building, you will find that this subconscious mind will speedily rebuild any damaged parts in accordance with that image.

As a matter of fact, if we could thoroughly realize that our bodies are made up merely of vortices of energy subject wholly to the control of mind, it should hurt us no more to run a knife through them than it does to run it through water. The water immediately resumes the shape of the vessel that holds it. Just so, our bodies should immediately resume the shape that mind holds them in.

But even with our present imperfect understanding, we can perform what the uninitiated would call miracles with our bodies. And each victory we win gives us a bit more of power over them. To conquer one diseased condition makes it easier to ward off or to conquer other diseased conditions. The body cannot oppose us. It is only the bias of education and the suggestions of those about. us that we have to combat.

There is no necessity for disease. There is no necessity even for fatigue. "They that wait upon the Lord shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint." Those words from Holy Writ were meant literally—and they can be applied literally if you will govern your body by mind, and not let custom and popular belief make your body the master. Whatever it is right for you to do, you can do without fear, no matter if it entails long-continued toil, hardship or danger. Depend upon it, your mind can call to your aid all the forces of Nature if they are necessary to your emergency.

"Therefore I say unto you," quoth the Master, "take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment?"

Diet, exercise and rules of health never kept any one well of themselves. Often they attract the mind to the subject of sickness and thereby foster it.

Dieting is good insofar as it prevents gluttony. Temperance is just as important in eating as in the drinking of alcoholic liquor. But you can eat in moderation anything you like, anything that you relish and BELIEVE to be good for you, without fear of its disagreeing with you.

Reasonable exercise, too, is fine for both the body and the mind. Provided you do not make a fetich of it. It isn't the exercise that keeps you well—it is the mental image you hold in your thought.

The exercise merely helps to impress that mental image on your subconscious mind.

Electrical treatments, skin tonics, alcohol rubs, etc., all are useful only to the extent that they center the attention of the subconscious mind upon the parts affected. Exactly the same results, even to that pleasant little tingling of the skin, can be effected by mind alone, I remember reading an article by Mrs. Vance Cheney, telling how she cured herself of paralysis of the legs in just that way. After lying for months under the care of doctors and masseurs, she tired of them and decided to depend entirely upon mind. So, several times a day, she would utterly relax in every nerve and muscle, then consciously send her thought down along the nerves of her legs to her feet. Presently there would be that little tingling sensation in her feet—evidence of increased circulation—followed after a time by a feeling of drowsiness. A few weeks of these treatments completely restored the use of her legs.

The same effort can be made to throw off any physical trouble. Put your hand upon the part affected. Try to visualize that organ as it should be. See it functioning perfectly. BELIEVE that it IS working normally again! Your thought brings the blood to the affected part, clears up the trouble, provides new cells, new tissue, while your belief that the organ IS functioning properly will bring about that normal condition.

This is a treatment, however, that must be used with discretion, for to consciously interfere in the regular functioning of the body without any real need for such interference results in confusion rather than help. It is like going down a flight of stairs rapidly. Pay no attention to the movement of your feet, and they flit over the steps with never a sign of hesitancy or faltering. But try to watch them step by step, and you will either have to slow up or you will presently miss a step, stumble or fall.

"The centipede was happy quite,

Until the toad, for fun,

Said, 'Pray, which leg goes after which?'

This stirred his mind to such a pitch,

He lay distracted in a ditch,

Considering how to run."

There is one rule that will help anyone keep healthy. That rule is to forget your nerves, throw away your pills and your medicine bottles, and hold before your mind's eye only the perfect image that Universal Mind has of your body. That is the surest way to keep free from sickness.

And if you are already sick, the same rule applies. Know that Universal Mind never created disease—that it is but an illusion of your conscious mind. Know that mind is the only creator, that as Shakespeare puts it, "There is nothing, either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Know that you have the say as to what that thinking shall be. Know, therefore, that by holding a perfect image of your body in your thoughts you can make your body perfect.

Have you ever cut your finger? Who was it coagulated the blood, stopped the gash, wove new skin? Who was it called upon the little phagocytes to come and kill the septic germs?

Not your conscious mind, certainly. Most people don't even know there are "any such animals." Their conscious minds don't know the first thing about healing. Whence comes the information? Whence the directing genius? Where but from the same intelligence that keeps your heart and lungs on the job while you sleep, that regulates your liver and your kidneys, that attends to all the functions of your body?

That intelligence is your subconscious mind. With the proper co-operation on your part, your subconscious mind will attend to these duties indefinitely, keeping your every organ perfect, your every function regular as clockwork.