The Power of Concentration | Page 6

an improvement from the very start, and this will give
you encouragement. They point out ways in which you can help yourself.
Man is a wonderful creature, but he must be trained and developed to be useful. A great
work can be accomplished by every man if he can be awakened to do his very best. But
the greatest man would not accomplish much if he lacked concentration and effort.
Dwarfs can often do the work of giants when they are transformed by the almost magic
power of great mental concentration. But giants will only do the work of dwarfs when
they lack this power.
We accomplish more by concentration than by fitness; the man that is apparently best
suited for a place does not always fill it best. It is the man that concentrates on its every
possibility that makes an art of both his work and his life.
All your real advancement must come from your individual effort.
This course of lessons will stimulate and inspire you to achieve success; it will bring you
into perfect harmony with the laws of success. It will give you a firmer hold on your
duties and responsibilities.
The methods of thought concentration given in this work if put into practice will open up
interior avenues that will connect you with the everlasting laws of Being and their
exhaustless foundation of unchangeable truth.
As most people are very different it is impossible to give instructions that will be of the
same value to all. The author has endeavored in these lessons to awaken that within the
soul which perhaps the book does not express. So study these lessons as a means of
awakening and training that which is within yourself. Let all your acts and thoughts have
the intensity and power of concentration.
To really get the full benefit of these lessons you should read a page, then close the book
and thoughtfully recall its ideas. If you will do this you will soon cultivate a concentrated
mental habit, which will enable you to read with ordinary rapidity and remember all that
you read.

LESSON I. CONCENTRATION FINDS THE WAY
Everyone has two natures. One wants us to advance and the other wants to pull us back.

The one that we cultivate and concentrate on decides what we are at the end. Both natures
are trying to gain control. The will alone decides the issue. A man by one supreme effort
of the will may change his whole career and almost accomplish miracles. You may be
that man. You can be if you Will to be, for Will can find a way or make one.
I could easily fill a book, of cases where men plodding along in a matter-of-fact way,
were all at once aroused and as if awakening from a slumber they developed the
possibilities within them and from that time on were different persons. You alone can
decide when the turning point will come. It is a matter of choice whether we allow our
diviner self to control us or whether we will be controlled by the brute within us. No man
has to do anything he does not want to do. He is therefore the director of his life if he
wills to be. What we are to do, is the result of our training. We are like putty, and can be
completely controlled by our will power.
Habit is a matter of acquirement. You hear people say: "He comes by this or that
naturally, a chip off the old block," meaning that he is only doing what his parents did.
This is quite often the case, but there is no reason for it, for a person can break a habit just
the moment he masters the "I will." A man may have been a "good-for-nothing" all his
life up to this very minute, but from this time on he begins to amount to something. Even
old men have suddenly changed and accomplished wonders. "I lost my opportunity," says
one. That may be true, but by sheer force of will, we can find a way to bring us another
opportunity. There is no truth in the saying that opportunity knocks at our door but once
in a lifetime. The fact is, opportunity never seeks us; we must seek it. What usually turns
out to be one man's opportunity, was another man's loss. In this day one man's brain is
matched against another's. It is often the quickness of brain action that determines the
result. One man thinks "I will do it," but while he procrastinates the other goes ahead and
does the work. They both have the same opportunity. The one will complain of his lost
chance. But it should teach him a lesson, and it will, if