Think Yourself to Health, Wealth & Happiness: The Best of Dr. Joseph Murphy's Cosmic Wisdom - Softcover

Think Yourself to
Health, Wealth
& Happiness

Titles by Joseph Murphy

THE POWER OF YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND

THE MIRACLE OF MIND DYNAMICS

YOUR INFINITE POWER TO BE RICH

SECRETS OF THE I CHING

THE AMAZING LAWS OF COSMIC MIND POWER

THINK YOURSELF RICH

THINK YOURSELF TO HEALTH, WEALTH & HAPPINESS

PUTTING THE POWER OF YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND TO WORK

Think Yourself to
Health, Wealth
& Happiness

Intuition

The Supreme Intelligence,
or Life Principle in your subconscious,
is always knocking at the door of your heart.

Open the door to your heart and listen.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank JMW Group, Inc., for giving me the opportunity to work on this book. It is always nice to have work, to have something to do. It is especially nice when what you do inspires and enriches you, as the writings of Joseph Murphy have done for me.

In particular, I would like to thank Pete Allen and Sara Castle, of JMW Group, Inc, for their support and infinite patience. They will smile when they read that, no doubt think that “infinite” falls far short of describing the degree of patience they were required to exercise. I don’t know of a word that speaks of a greater quantity. If I did, I would use it, for they have given it. Perhaps where I’m falling short, then, is not in the word infinite, but in the word patience. Perhaps I should instead have used forbearance. So I will revise my gratitude: I would like to thank Pete Allen and Sara Castle for their infinite forbearance.

My thanks to production editor Mariann Hutlak, for her generosity of time and her guidance in seeing to it that a manuscript became a book.

And I would be remiss if I excluded my cat Toby. He has had to endure months of regrettable neglect. But always, he came to me, giving his affection, seeking mine. Often, he received instead my ill temper, my impatience, as he uncannily entered my office at just those moments when I was struggling for a word or concept or the order of things. In the end, however, he won me over, reminding me in the process of what I think is perhaps one of Joseph Murphy’s most profound teachings: (which you’ll find in his chapter “Forgiveness”): “Without love in our hearts, we stumble and fall.”

What This Book Can Do for You

Through the words you will read, you will discover the limitless power within you to create the life of prosperity and harmony you desire. You will learn to tune in to the infinite intelligence and power within you.

Think Yourself to Health, Wealth & Happiness contains the keys to transforming your life. Bringing together the highlights of Joseph Murphy’s lifetime of teachings about the power of the subconscious mind, this book will help you learn the rules, techniques, and principles for using the power of your subconscious to bring forth health, happiness, prosperity, and all that you desire in your life.

To reap the greatest benefit from this book, start by reading all of Part I, “The Great Laws of the Subconscious Mind,” in order to acquire an understanding of the basic principles of the power of the subconscious mind. A firm grasp of these is essential. Part II, “Enrich Your Life with the Unlimited Power of Your Subconscious Mind,” will guide you in applying the laws of the subconscious to specific areas of your life that you seek to change or enhance. As you read Part II, allow yourself to stay with each chapter for a while. Take time to reflect on it and understand how it addresses your current needs. Allow the teachings of the chapter to become a part of your subconscious. Then move on to another chapter.

Once you have concluded your initial reading of the book, keep it on hand as a companion that you can turn to whenever you want to enrich an area of your life or are facing a difficulty of any kind. For example, if you want to know more about the miraculous power of prayer and how you can benefit from it, you can turn to Chapter 4; if you’re finding it difficult to forgive, you can turn to Chapter 5; if needless worry and fear are holding you back, Chapter 11 will teach you to find peace; and if you are seeking more fulfilling relationships, Chapter 17 will guide you.

Joseph Murphy dedicated his life to understanding the laws of the subconscious mind and to teaching others—in simple, down-to-earth terms—how to translate this understanding into practical techniques that can be applied for the betterment of everyday life. In these pages, you will find invaluable knowledge culled from Murphy’s teachings and particularly chosen for inclusion here because of their keenness of insight and practical benefits. You will read about real people and how they used the laws of the subconscious to bring desired changes into their life. You will discover techniques that you can apply to strengthen the power of your subconscious and use to achieve all your aspirations and you will learn the key principles to remember and apply in your daily life. Whatever enrichment or transformation your desire, Think Yourself to Health, Wealth & Happiness will help you attain it.

Editor’s Preface

Part I

THE GREAT LAWS OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND

1 Understanding the Laws of the Subconscious

What you can conceive, you can achieve through the wisdom and power of your subconscious mind.

Your subconscious is part of mind, which operates in accordance with psychological laws, and part of Mind, which operates in accordance with spiritual laws. This is not to say that the subconscious is two minds. It is one mind that can have two distinct ways of operating. To truly understand then, the workings, and most importantly the power of your subconscious, it is important—indeed necessary—that we discuss and know well its two aspects, or operations, separately.

THE SUBCONSCIOUS AS HABIT–MIND

It often appears as though we are living in two worlds: one external and the other internal; one visible and the other invisible; one objective and the other subjective.

The external (visible, objective) world enters you through your five senses and is shared by everyone. Your internal (invisible, subjective) world of thoughts, feelings, imagination, sensations, beliefs, and reactions belongs to you alone.

Suppose, for example, that you are invited to a banquet. Everything that you see, hear, taste, smell, and touch is of the external world, the world revealed by your five senses. All that you think, feel, like, and dislike belongs to your inner world. In one sense, it could be said that you are attending two banquets: the one of your sensory experiences and the one of your subjective experiences. In the end, though, there is only one banquet: the one of your subjective experience. Even your sensory experiences would mean nothing if it weren’t for your subjective experiences that tell you that you like this and don’t like that, enjoy this and don’t enjoy that, want this and don’t want that.

Ask yourself, “In which world do I do my living? Do I live in the world that is revealed by my five senses, or in the inner world?”

In truth, it is in the inner world that you live all the time. Whether you are acting so consciously or not, it is in this world where you hold your truest existence. This is the world of your subconscious. This is where you feel. This is the world you want to consciously honor in order to have the life you want.

The law of your mind is this: You will get a reaction or response from your subconscious mind according to the nature of the thought or idea you hold in your conscious mind.

The terms generally used to distinguish the two functions of your mind are objective and subjective mind, conscious and subconscious mind, waking and sleeping mind, surface self and deep self, voluntary mind and involuntary mind, male and female—among others. I use the terms conscious and unconscious to represent this dual nature of your mind.

It is important to remember, however, that these are not two minds. They are merely two spheres of activity within one mind. You have only one mind, which possesses two distinctive characteristics, two levels.

The functions of these two spheres of mind are essentially unlike. Each is endowed with separate and distinct attributes and powers.

The five-sense mind, the conscious mind, is the mind that thinks from the standpoint of circumstance, conditions, and environment, but it is within your subconscious mind that you will find the cause for every effect. The conditions, circumstances, and environment of your life are not the cause of your life—they are the effects.

Your conscious mind has the thought of expectancy; your deeper mind has the “know-how” of accomplishment. Consider this parable of the conscious and subconscious minds.

The captain of a ship directs the ship and signals orders to those in the engine room who control all the boilers, instruments, gauges, and so on. The workers in the engine room do not know where they are going; they follow orders. They would go on the rocks if the person on the bridge issued faulty or wrong instructions. The captain issues orders that are automatically obeyed. Those in the engine room do not give their input; they simply carry out orders.

Our subconscious convictions and beliefs dictate and control all our conscious actions.

The subconscious acts by law. The law that may now hold you in bondage can also be the law that can free you. A negative habit that binds you can be transformed into a positive habit that frees you, through the repetition and the abiding conviction of your desired action in your conscious mind.

Habits, in other words, are formed by repeating certain thought patterns or actions over and over again until they establish patterns in the subconscious mind, where they grow until they reach the point of saturation. Impressions are made in the subconscious by repetition, faith, and expectancy. Whatever is repeated by you over and over again becomes an established habit pattern and is in control.

Through the act of repetition and conviction, your newly desired conscious will for yourself can become your subconscious will for yourself.

Your subconscious mind works twenty-four hours a day, pouring all the fruit of your habitual thinking into your life.

The law of the subconscious mind does not act differently for the rich or the poor, the good or the wicked. It produces unerringly what it is presented. If you hold up a horrible painting in front of a mirror, the mirror will reflect exactly the picture held before it. The subconscious mind is a mirror for the king and the beggar alike: It always reflects accurately the contents of your mentality.

Just as a doctor has confidence when he or she begins to operate, because the doctor knows surgery, anatomy, physiology, and other basic sciences dealing with the human body, you can, by comparable study and application, develop confidence in the principles of the two functions of your mind—namely the conscious and subconscious. You can learn that the subconscious mind responds to your habitual thinking, and that by carefully choosing your thoughts, you can choose your reactions and responses to life, thus creating the life you want.

Your conscious mind is the reasoning, thinking mind. You make all your decisions with your conscious mind. Your subconscious mind is the seat of your emotions and is the creative mind.

Your conscious mind chooses, but it does not create. Your subconscious is the creative power within you. By the combined operations of your subconscious and conscious minds, you truly become the sum total of your conscious choices.

If you say to your subconscious, “Wake me up at six o’clock,” you will awaken exactly at the time specified. It never fails. The subconscious is a source of omnipotent power.

If you pay keen attention to the actions and behaviors of your conscious life and the ideas that well up in your conscious mind, you will find that your subconscious mind is attempting to keep you informed of things transpiring on the subjective plane of your life. It is always trying to support you. The law of life is self-preservation.

You have free will in the choice of the idea, desire, or concept you entertain. In that sense, you have freedom. Thereafter, however, once you mentally accept an idea as living reality, all your steps are then controlled by the subconscious mind, which operates according to the law of compulsion. The beliefs and assumptions that have become embedded in your subconscious dictate, control, and govern all your conscious actions.

Only through the conscious choice of the prayer to change your subconscious beliefs for the better can you alter the movement of the law of compulsion in your life.

The wisdom of your deeper mind is always using you. Practice using the wisdom of your deeper mind until it begins to use you in such a manner that all your ways are pleasant and all your paths are peace.

The law of the subconscious is the universal and natural principle of action and reaction: Whatever you impress on your subconscious mind by your conscious mind will be expressed, that is, carried out in your life.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “There is no thought in my mind but it quickly tends to convert itself into a power and organizes a huge instrumentality of means.”

Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap (Galatians 6:7)

This refers to the action of our thoughts. We sow thoughts when we believe them wholeheartedly.

Our subconscious minds are like the soil. They will grow whatever type of seed we plant in the gardens of our minds, and that is what we will reap.

Your subconscious accepts and brings into reality the dominant of two ideas, feelings, and images. It is your dominant thoughts, feelings, and images that control all phases of your life.

In thinking about your subconscious mind, remember that it operates deductively. It brings to a logical, sequential conclusion the nature of the thoughts, feelings, or pictures you hold in your conscious mind.

Your conscious mind is referred to as your objective mind because it deals with outward objects; it takes cognizance of the objective world. It is your guide and director in your contact with your environment. It learns through observation, experience, and education—acquiring knowledge through your five senses.

Your subconscious mind is referred to as your subjective mind because it takes cognizance of its environment by means independent of the five senses. It perceives by intuition. It is the seat of your emotions and the storehouse of memory.

The only thing necessary for you to do is to get your subconscious mind to accept your idea, and the law of your own subconscious mind will bring it forth. You give the command or decree, and your subconscious will faithfully reproduce the idea impressed upon it.

Innumerable experiments by psychologists and others on persons in the hypnotic state ha...