PERSONAL POWER (Complete 12 Volume Edition). William Walker Atkinson
quoted) to your attention and study if you feel the need of strengthening, developing and cultivating Will Power. It is devoted exclusively to the consideration of the principles and laws of Will Power, and contains practical instruction along the lines of the development of that great mental force.
Make a mental note of this axiom: “The fourth step on the Ladder of Attainment is that of Persistent Determination—the stage of ‘persistently determining to obtain the thing’.” Unless you plant your foot firmly on that step, you will never reach the goal which you seek by means of that ladder.
Balanced Compensation consists of the willingness to “pay the price” of attainment in the shape or form of (a) untiring and unyielding, persistent and persevering work leading toward your definite end and purpose, aim and intention; and (b) the sacrifice of desires, aims, purposes, ideas, feelings, likes and dislikes—of all mental or emotional states, in fact—which oppose or contradict your Definite Ideals, and which threaten to impair, obstruct, or defeat their definite purpose. The Law of Compensation and Balance runs through all Nature and all Life. One must always Pay the Price. Two ancient aphorisms illustrate this, viz.: “Said the gods to man: What you want? Take it—but pay the price’,” and “Do as thou wilt—but pay the price!” The man who really “wants anything hard enough” is always ready and willing to “pay the price”—in work, toil, effort; and in the relinquishment of all that obstructs, diverts, or obstructs the attainment of that which he desires and wills.
Balanced Compensation is a great law of Nature: none escape it, nothing is free from its laws. Everything is balanced by something else. Everything must “give” something in order to “get” something. Everything must “give up” something in order to “get more” or something else. Emerson has brought out this universal principle in his great essay entitled “Compensation’; and the experience of every individual serves to illustrate the operation of this law. Everything must be “paid for” in the price of something else; everything maintains its position by reason of Balance. The wise men of the race recognize this great principle, and proceed in accordance with it; the fools seek to overcome it, and fail by reason of their folly.
All men who have obtained, attained, or achieved anything at all worth while, have “paid the price.” The “price” paid by them consists of various elements. Work performed; persistent application; perseverance; industry; diligence—all these form a part of the “price.” Service rendered to others, for which one receives compensation in one form or another—this is a part of the “price,” and a very important part, too. Other forms of the “price” are found in the sacrifice and renunciation of ideas, ideals, feelings, desires, ambitions, aims ends, which are opposed to the subject or object representing the “top values” or “prime motives” of the individual. The successful man is found always to have sacrificed and renounced the lesser values for the greater ones.
In the work of increasing your Desire Power, and your Will Power, you will be called upon frequently to “pay the price.” Your great desires demand the sacrifice of many minor desires which have been drawing to themselves a portion of the fuel required by the great “wants.” By extinguishing these minor flames you serve to give to the great Flame of Desire all the fuel that is needed by it to generate the Steam of Will. Your Will Power, operating in the direction of Persistent Purposeful Determination, finds that of necessity it must restrain, control or even inhibit entirely certain tendencies of your nature which are perceived to work against the success of the main object of your Desire and Will. The Will is ruthless in these matters; it unhesitatingly sacrifices many of the little things of your emotional nature for the “one big thing” that represents your Summum Bonum or Greatest Good.
In the two volumes of this series entitled “Desire Power” and “Will Power,” respectively, considerable attention has been devoted to the particular subject of feeding the Great Desires and Great Objects of Will by means of deliberately starving and inhibiting the lesser desires and objects of will which are found to interfere with the successful attainment of the “big things.” These books are recommended to your attention in case you feel the need of further and special instruction along the lines of Balanced Compensation. Most persons require such instruction; many fail by a lack of understanding of this great principle of Life.
Make a mental note of this axiom: “The fifth and final step on the Ladder of Attainment is that of Balanced Determination—the stage of ‘paying the price of attainment’.” Even though you have successfully climbed the four lower steps, yet you will fail of attainment if you are unable or unwilling to plant your foot firmly upon this fifth and final one. Unless you are willing to “pay the price,” your Definite Ideals, your Insistent Desire, your Confident Expectation, your Persistent Determination be sufficiently strong and active, then the very force of their urge will often raise you up to this final step of the ladder, and will make you willing and glad to “pay the price.”
THE SECRET OF THE MASTER FORMULA. “The Master Formula of Attainment” which has been presented to you is found to contain the quintessence of those Dynamic Forces of Life and Mind known, respectively, as Ideation, Desire, Faith, Will, and Balance. The simplicity of the Master Formula may at first prevent you from fully realizing its tremendous importance; we trust, however, that you will mentally masticate and digest it, so that you may fully assimilate its great truths and effective ideas. The longer you consider it, the more you analyze and dissect it, the more you synthesize its several elements into a “working principle,” the greater will be your appreciation of its value and efficacy. Hold fast to the Master Formula, for it will prove a Tower of Strength to you. We suggest that you visualize the diagram of it which appears in the first portion of this book—directly facing the first page of reading matter. Make a mental picture of it; and let its statement be your Working Slogan.
This is all that can be told you in the way of general directions. The details of the application must be worked out by yourself—but the forces which you have set into motion and activity will render this task easy by awakening your subconscious and superconscious mental faculties which will supply you with the necessary ideas and thoughts. The actual work must be done by yourself—but these awakened and aroused forces of your being will give you the strength and the power to do the work and accomplish the task: they will awaken an unsuspected “second wind” of power and energy within you, and will make you equal to the task. But, above all, your spirit must not “weaken”—and it will not weaken if you manifest the “Master Formula of Attainment,” of which we have just told you. You remember it: “Definite Ideals, Insistent Desire, Confident Expectation, Persistent Determination, and Balanced Compensation.”
Not only will the work of the materialization of the ideal proceed in the manner which we have repeatedly indicated in this book: but you will also set into operation that wonderful law of Nature called “The Law of Attraction.” This law operates in the direction of correlating you to the things serving to aid you in your work of materialization, and in attracting them to you. You will find things and persons, circumstances and events, gravitating toward you as you proceed.
Nature’s forces once strongly set into operation tend to attract to them that which they need for the full materialization of the idea involved in the process. The materials needed to fill in the picture, to fill the mold, to work out the pattern—all these will move toward the materializing ideal. How? you ask. Well, just as they do toward the Idea in the acorn, as it proceeds to evolve into the oak tree; just as they do toward the wellenergized germ of life from which evolves the final form of the adult living creature. You are here setting into operation a great Law of Nature—“your own will come to you” when you have aroused this law into activity.
In these pages you have been asked to consider some great truths, to examine some tremendous principles, to manifest some mighty powers of Being—things far more potent and potential than you now even begin to recognize or realize. As you proceed to manifest these in actual experience, the wonder will grow rather than lessen. You will soon become conscious that you are in close contact with some of the most elemental and fundamental laws of Nature—and of activities proceeding from that which lies back of and under Nature. Herein, you have had set before you some wonderful instruments and machinery of Being—use them well, but do not misuse them. Do not trifle or play with them—if