How to Master One’s Thoughts – 5 Conditions
How can one become master of one’s thought?
First condition. To understand the full importance of this mastery by becoming aware, through observation, that our actions are the exact expression of our thoughts and that so long as we do not have perfect control over our mental activity, these thoughts are nothing but reflexes coming from every outside influence (sensations and suggestions). Thus we do not possess ourselves and can in no way be responsible for ourselves so long as we are not the masters of our thought.
Second condition. To will persistently an effective direction of our mental activity.
Third condition. To observe our thoughts in order to become familiar with them, to know their habitual course and become aware of the ones which have a special affinity with our sensorial and emotional nature.
Fourth condition. To seek in ourselves the idea which seems to be the highest, the noblest, the purest and most disinterested and, until the day we find a more beautiful idea to replace it, to make it the pivot around which our mental synthesis will be built up, the regulating idea in whose light all other thoughts can be seen and judged, that is, accepted or rejected.
Fifth condition. To undergo a regular daily mental discipline. To discover among all the teachings that have been given on this subject the method that seems to be most effective and to follow it scrupulously, rigorously, with energy and perseverance.
Ref : Words of Long Ago
