Prentice Mulford - The Collected Works of Prentice Mulford

Old thought-constant repetition of the same thought--involves decay, sluggishness of mind, sluggishness of body.

Suppose that we rose each morn with the absolute certainty that each day was to be a day involving to us more or less of the excitement of discovery in something useful and enjoyable, and also of similar use to others--something endurable for us and others--endurable for eternity-some unexpected branching out of yesterday's truth, which for yesterday seemed fully grown--something telling us how life may be made still fuller of durable and harmless enjoyment; some great law principle in Nature recognized possibly for the first time in some heretofore called "little thing," in the fall of a leaf, in the colouring of a leaf by the autumnal frost, in its almost equal vividness of colour coming through the heat of Spring.

What must be the pleasure to an open and receptive mind to find today an increase of improvement in the quality almost despaired of yesterday--an increase of patience in doing the perplexing work --an increase of courage--an increase of perception to see beauty in what yesterday it passed by with indifference--an increase of power to control unruly appetite--an increase of power to drive away unpleasant and therefore injurious thought.

Would not such be encouraging, cheering, life giving, health-giving thoughts? This order and accession of ever new thought knows no stop in any direction. It says: "Are you orderly today? You will find some power and room and capacity to be more orderly tomorrow." Was your last effort in music, in painting, in composition, in acting, in oratory, your greatest triumph?" "You will find some way of making it more perfect tomorrow." That will take nothing from the last effort. It is only a more beautiful and delicate tint for some already beautiful picture. The consciousness of such never-ending growth of improvement is also food for the growing mind, other than bread. Yet it is bread. It is the "Bread of Life," and to be desired as "Our Daily Bread."

Would not also the thought each morning that a Great Power, an infinitely wise mind, was always ready to give more knowledge to help you through troubles--troubles from without and troubles from within. Would not such thought, and the trust begotten of it, be as food, strength, and healthy stimulation?

Especially when the reality of this Power and its ability to aid had been proven to you many times, so that the hope had become a conviction? Grant that new thought is healthy stimulation and also a necessary food to a more perfected life and the question arrives, "How shall we get it?" In other words, "How may we attune ourselves or how may we become more receptive to all that is beautiful and useful in Nature?" For in our religion the useful always implies the beautiful. It is almost farcical to answer, "Live a pure life." That implies so much; so much in so many cases to be done; so much of inherent tendency to be outgrown; so many difficulties to be met; so many conditions necessary for such life so difficult to make. The desire for accumulation seems a Law of our Natures. In its cruder working it accumulates money: in its higher form it would accumulate powers and qualities of mind. "I am $100 or $500 richer than I was this morning," says, with satisfaction and pleasure at night, the money accumulator. That pleasant thought is to him a bit of the bread of Life--but not of enduring life, or in the end, if at all healthy life.

"I," may say another man at night, "am richer than I was this morning by so much more patience, by a bit more of skill or dexterity in my art, by certain knowledge of which I knew nothing twenty four hours ago."

Are we yet fully awakened to the thought that we are receptacles for thought and with thought knowledge, and with knowledge Power, and that our capacity for receiving all these may be limitless, and that the supply of knowledge, power, new thought in the Universe is limitless also, and that it is all ours to draw from, and that the Bank can no more break than Eternity can end.

There are thousands of things, events and scenes in your past life which it is more profitable to forget than to remember. By so forgetting you allow entrance for new idea, which is new life. By remembering you prevent the coming to you of such new idea and life.

By "forgetting," I mean that you should avoid living in unpleasant past scenes and remembrances. Absolutely to forget or wipe out completely from memory anything it has once taken note of is impossible. For everything you have seen, learned, sensed or heard is stored away, and is capable under certain circumstances of being brought to view again.

In place of the term forgetting it would be better to say you should cultivate the power of driving from your mind and putting out of sight whatever makes you feel unhappy or whatever you discover that is unprofitable to remember.

It is impossible absolutely to wipe out anything your memory has once written on its tablets, for whatever the scene, event or experience may have been, it has become a part of your real self or spirit. In other words your spirit is made up of all its experiences and consequent remembrances extending to an infinite past. Of these some are vivid, some vague, and much is buried out of present sight, but capable under certain circumstances of being called to remembrance. To destroy such remembrance, if possible, would be to destroy so much of your mind.

All experiences are valuable for the wisdom they bring or suggest. But when you have once gained wisdom and knowledge from any experience, there is little profit in repeating it, especially if it has been unpleasant, You do actually repeat it when you remember it or live it over again in thought. This is what people are doing who brood over past misfortunes and disappointments.

It is what people are doing when they recall with regret their youth as bright and joyous as compared with the gloom of their middle or old age. Live in the pleasant remembrance of your youth, if you so desire. That will do you good. But do not set it in its brightness and freshness against a dark background of the present. Do not think of it in that vein.

Remember that the time of your infancy and youth, with all its freshness and newness, was also the time of some other people's old age when the world seemed stale and joyless, when to them all that life seemed capable of yielding seemed exhausted, when nothing seemed to remain but to wither and die. Remember also that today if the world seems less bright than formerly, if the sun seems setting instead of rising, it seems now to the boy and girl of ten or fifteen as it did to you at that age.

No person could hold his or her physical body and enjoy life who as they lived on lived in the past and refused to set or open their minds to the future. In so doing they accumulate more and more of the old and relatively lifeless thought, and this element materializes itself on the body. Their flesh, bone and blood then become an actual expression of the dead and inert spirit.

To live carrying such an ever-increasing load must result only in weakness and misery so long as the spirit can carry it. But the mind rejecting the old which it has no use for and ever pressing on to the new, adds the new thought to itself, and this newness of idea will materialize a newer body.

You do actually make the "things before" pleasant or unpleasant for you according as you think of them in advance.

There is a class of people who, if in difficulties and anyone suggests a way out, instantly raise objections and find difficulties in the plan proposed. When in thought we so find difficulties, we actually make them. To lay awake nights and brood, devise, turn over or invent possible coming troubles is force and industry ill employed in preparing the way for those troubles.