Psychology and Achievement | Page 5

all the
time that you can put upon them.
The mind is a complex mechanism. Each element is alone a fitting
subject for a lifetime's study. Do not lose sight of the whole in the study
of the parts.
All the books bear upon a central theme. They will lead you on step by
step. Gradually your conception of your relations to the world will
change. A new realization of power will come upon you. You will learn
that you are in a new sense the master of your fate. You will find these
books, like the petals of a flower, unfolding one by one until a great
and vital truth stands revealed in full-blown beauty.
To derive full benefit from the Course it is necessary that you should
do more than merely understand each sentence as you go along. You
must grasp the underlying train of thought. You must perceive the
continuity of the argument.
It is necessary, therefore, that you do but a limited amount of reading
each day, taking ample time to reflect on what you have read. If any
book is not entirely clear to you at first, go over it again. Persistence
will enable any man to acquire a thorough comprehension of our

teachings and a profound mastery of our methods.

TWO LAWS OF SUCCESS-ACHIEVEMENT
CHAPTER II
TWO LAWS OF SUCCESS-ACHIEVEMENT
[Sidenote: The One-Man Business Corporation]
As a working unit you are a kind of one-man business corporation
made up of two departments, the mental and the physical.
Your mind is the executive office of this personal corporation, its
directing "head." Your body is the corporation's "plant." Eyes and ears,
sight and smell and touch, hands and feet--these are the implements,
the equipment.
We have undertaken to teach you how to acquire a perfect mastery of
your own powers and meet the practical problems of your life in such a
way that success will be swift and certain.
[Sidenote: Business and Bodily Activity]
First of all it is necessary that you should accept and believe two
well-settled and fundamental laws.
I. All human achievement comes about through bodily activity.
II. All bodily activity is caused, controlled and directed by the mind.
Give the first of these propositions but a moment's thought. You can
conceive of no form of accomplishment which is not the result of some
kind of bodily activity. One would say that the master works of poetry,
art, philosophy, religion, are products of human effort furthest removed
from the material side of life, yet even these would have perished
still-born in the minds conceiving them had they not found

transmission and expression through some form of bodily activity. You
will agree, therefore, that the first of these propositions is so
self-evident, so axiomatic, as neither to require nor to admit of formal
proof.
The second proposition is not so easily disposed of. It is in fact so
difficult of acceptance by some persons that we must make very plain
its absolute validity. Furthermore, its elucidation will bring forth many
illuminating facts that will give you an entirely new conception of the
mind and its scope and influence.
[Sidenote: The Enslaved Brain]
Remember, when we say "mind," we are not thinking of the brain. The
brain is but one of the organs of the body, and, by the terms of our
proposition as stated, is as much the slave of the mind as is any other
organ of the body. To say that the mind controls the body presupposes
that mind and body are distinct entities, the one belonging to a spiritual
world, the other to a world of matter.
That the mind is master of the body is a settled principle of science. But
we realize that its acceptance may require you to lay aside some
preconceived prejudices. You may be one of those who believe that the
mind is nothing more nor less than brain activity. You may believe that
the body is all there is to man and that mind-action is merely one of its
functions.
[Sidenote: First Step Toward Self-Realization]
If so, we want you nevertheless to realize that, while as a matter of
philosophic speculation you retain these opinions, you may at the same
time for practical purposes regard the mind as an independent causal
agency and believe that it can and does control and determine and
cause any and every kind of bodily activity. We want you to do this
because this conclusion is at the basis of a practical system of mental
efficiency and because, as we shall at once show you, it is capable of
proof by the established methods of physical science.

RELATION OF MIND ACTIVITY TO BODILY ACTIVITY
CHAPTER III
RELATION OF MIND ACTIVITY TO BODILY ACTIVITY
POINT OF VIEW FROM WHICH YOU MUST APPROACH THIS