Law of Success (21st Century Edition)

708 THE PRINCIPLES OF SELF-CREATION

Desire

Strong, deeply rooted desire is the starting point and seed of all
achievement. It is the starting place behind which there is nothing, or
at least nothing of which we have any knowledge.
A Definite Chief Aim, which is only another name for desire,
would be meaningless unless based on a strong desire for the object of
that aim. Many people "wish" for many things, but a wish is not the
equivalent of a strong desire, and therefore wishes are of little or no
value unless crystallized into the more definite form of desire.
It is believed that all energy and all matter respond to and are
controlled by a law of attraction that causes elements and forces of
a similar nature to gather around certain centers of attraction. Like-
wise, constant, deeply seated desire attracts the physical equivalent or
counterpart of the thing desired, or the means of securing it.

Suggestion and Autosuggestion

Through this and other lessons of the Law of Success course, you
have learned that sense impressions arising out of one's environment,
or from statements or actions of other people, are called suggestions,
while sense impressions that we place in our own minds are placed
there by self-suggestion, or autosuggestion.
All suggestions coming from others, or from our environment,
influence us only after we have accepted them and passed them on
to the subconscious mind through the principle of autosuggestion.
Thus it is seen that suggestion must become autosuggestion before
it influences the mind of the one receiving it.
Stated another way, no one may influence another without the
consent of the one influenced, as the influencing is done through one's
own power of autosuggestion.
The conscious mind stands, during the hours when one is awake,
as a sentinel, guarding the subconscious mind and warding off all sug-
gestions that try to reach it from the outside until those suggestions