How To Attract Success

It is therefore impossible for any teacher to lay down a law in the handling of things which is applicable to all persons under all conditions. This much we can say, however, that it is never the thing itself which is good or bad, which brings joy or sorrow, success or failure, but it is the attitude we take toward the thing. In order to gain success then we should take a harmonious and constructive attitude toward everything that comes and so keep ourselves perfectly harmonious, and in that way make of the thing simply a stepping-stone to our success. What we permit ourselves to think about a thing is what controls our attitude toward it.

Thus, for instance, when we permit ourselves to condemn a thing because we say it is bad, or condemn some person for any cause whatever, that is taking a destructive attitude toward that thing or person and no matter how just we may think our position in the case may be we cannot relate with these negative, destructive currents in our thought world and expect constructive and harmonious effects, any more than we can expect to walk through a mud hole without getting mud on us.

A natural inquiry which would be made right here by the masses is this: Supposing someone should steal our pocket-book, are we to say that is good and not try to get it back or punish the thief should he be caught? Remember again that it is never the thing we do but it is the way we do it, the consciousness back of the thing we do, that makes it constructive or destructive.

We always have a perfect right and it is always constructive to defend ourselves and our property but it is just as surely destructive for us to step over the line of defense and into the line of offense or attack. The line of demarcation between defense and offense is so slight and so subtle that it is difficult for the evolving soul to determine just where defense ends and offense begins.

Like everything else, however, the beginning and ending are in the thought world, in our consciousness. When we pursue a thief with the desire in our hearts to punish him, or when we attack someone in return in an attempt to defend ourselves from their attack, we are stepping over the boundary line or defense and are well into the vibrations of offense. When we condemn a thief, or anyone else, in our consciousness, no matter what they have done, we have again stepped over the line of defense and into that of offense.

It is perfectly legitimate and constructive to analyze anything and everything as long as we do not criticize or condemn. Jesus said I judge no man, neither doth my Father in Heaven (Father in Harmony) judge any man. He understood this Law of Harmony.

The man who sells blue sky, knowing that it is only blue sky, to an unsuspecting public in the belief on the part of the latter that they are buying well secured stocks or bonds, the man who sells cotton goods under the representation that it is all wool, the man who forecloses a mortgage because the owner of the property cannot pay it when due although he wants to pay it and would do so were it possible for him to earn the money, the man who breaks into our place of business or our home and takes away our valuables without our permission are one and all in the same class in this respect, that is, they are all working under the Law of Force.

It is the only law they have ever known and therefore the best thing they know how to do; they have not yet learned the Law of Harmonious Attraction, nor the destructive effects of the Law of Force. It is true that the thief has learned that should they be caught they will undoubtedly be sent to prison. They do not fear to steal because it is wrong or destructive but only because they will be deprived of their liberty.