Excerpts from

  How to lose your fears and find
YOUR KEY TO HAPPINESS
by Harold Sherman




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YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE!

This book can unlock for you the secret of a happy and rewarding life. The author gives you a definite method by which the Key to Your Inner Self can open to you a vast reservoir of creative power . . . power you have never sus­pected exists within you.

He shows you how to draw upon this truly amaz­ing creative power to bring you the things in life you most desire. Success and purpose can be yours ... if you will only reach out for and grasp YOUR KEY TO HAPPINESS.

"I can wholeheartedly well recommend his books to all who arc in search of self-development." —Dr. Ernest Holmes, author of SCIENCEOF MIND

INTRODUCTION

         THERE IS MUCH, very much, I would like to say to you, could I meet and talk personally with you, who are about to read this book. But perhaps, if you will let yourself feel that I am talking to you now, alone, we can have a good visit together.

I have been asked by so many thousands of men and women, as the result of my radio talks on person­al philosophy, how I came to believe, as I do, in the power of right thinking and the unquestioned exis­tence of a personal God, that I feel this will be one of your first questions, too.

You have a right to ask me this question for you are a searcher after truth, as am I, and you have sought the answer to these age-old and perplexing problems in your life. Each seeker brings to the quest his own degree of belief or skepticism, based upon the nature of his past experience. While we of today have been told that “faith is the substance of things unseen,” few of us are willing to accept the evidence of faith unless we can see its works. What­ever your belief, or lack of belief, either in higher powers within yourself, or in a direct personal rela­tion to God, you do not want to be deluded.

This was my own attitude, years ago. Certain un­usual mental experiences had come to me which I could not explain in accordance with my youthful concept of this material world. It seemed fantastic and impossible, for instance, though radio was then being talked about, that human thought could ever be transmitted from one mind to another. And yet, there had been forced upon me several startling and undeniable evidences that my mind had received such thoughts. I was greatly disturbed by these happen­ings and found that I could confide them to few people for fear of being considered on the fringe of lunacy or placed in the category of an “abnormal child” who was subject to hallucinations.

The experiences impressed me so deeply, however, that I resolved to spend my life, devoting all the time I could possibly afford in a study of these strange and little-understood faculties of mind, with the hope that I might, at least, clarify for myself what these mental processes were which sometimes operated beyond the so-called normal. I thought the answer might be found in the religions and philosophies of the world, and so I began a study of them. I found much of inspiration but little of illumination. I became more and more certain that the spiritual principles uni­formly extolled in these various beliefs and philo­sophic concepts, concealed great demonstrable truths.

But how could I ever get at them and reduce them to such a simple and workable formula that I could prove these principles in my everyday life? When I sought the answer in the psychic field, I found myself venturing upon ground that scientists either feared or disdained to tread. It is only in recent years that the study of what is now called “extra-sensory per­ception” has been taken up by such eminent investi­gators as Dr. J. B. Rhine, of Duke University and Dr. Gardner Murphy, formerly head of the Para-psy­chology Department of Columbia University. These men, modern pioneers in the field of research, are still facing the ridicule of many fellow scientists but their contributions to the definitely growing knowledge of the higher faculties of mind, already loom large. They are being joined by increasing numbers of scientists, research workers, electrical engineers, astronomers and distinguished men and women in all walks of life who are giving testimony to the existence of these powers which I sensed as a boy.

You have felt flashes of these same higher forces within you, from time to time. We all have. But we have set them down to “coincidence” or a “hunch” or the work of intuition. Fortunately, for all ordinary intents and purposes, we are insulated from the auto­matic operation of these higher powers of mind. Our conscious mind, which deals strictly with our five physical senses, sees to that. We have trained our conscious mind to believe that these higher powers do not exist and that we cannot come by any knowledge unless it is brought to us through one or more of these senses–sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell.

It is, usually, only when something of serious emo­tional moment happens to a close friend or loved one, that sufficient intensity of thought energy is created to transmit a message to our minds against the resis­tance of this conscious mind. This accounts for many men and women declaring that they knew when some dear one was taken suddenly ill or met with an acci­dent or died. They still, perhaps, did not believe in telepathy or any kind of a “psychic manifestation” and offered an apology when telling of the incident, but could give no explanation.

These were the kind of happenings, among others, for which I had to determine the answer in order to gain peace of mind. If telepathy and these other un­charted powers of mind were really a fact, then it would indicate that man, himself, was more than a physical being; that perhaps the great religions and philosophies of the world spoke the truth when they declared that man was also spirit.

This is not the time or place for me to take you with me on the long and soul-trying years of investi­gation and research and personal experimentation I gladly entered upon in the belief that, if these powers did actually exist, any persevering human should be able to prove them in his own life and with his own I mind.

This book, which you now hold in your hands, was written by me at the conclusion of my search, after I had become convinced that I stood upon a firm foundation and that, insofar as I had been able to go, I knew the way and could trace and retrace my steps. I wrote this book first, as a means of crystallizing for myself, the knowledge which had come to me through tested life experience. The information herein con­tained has nothing to do with telepathy. It deals strictly with another phase of these higher faculties of mind–a great, God-given, creative power which exists within your subconscious mind and which you can learn to draw upon to bring you the things in life you most desire.

Two years after this volume was first published, I entered into a five months’ series of experiments in long-distance telepathy with the Arctic explorer, Sir Hubert Wilkins. It was the first time I had attempted such work under scientific observation and, of course, I could not guarantee what results might be obtained. Wilkins was three thousand miles away in the Far North, searching for the lost Russian fliers, and I was then in my apartment in New York City.

Three nights a week, at the prearranged time of 11:30 to 12 midnight, I made my mind receptive, by a method I had developed through years of private experimenting, and attempted to receive impressions from the mind of Wilkins as to what had happened to him that day, or was happening to him, at that very moment. When each night’s session was over, I typed copies of what had seemed to “come through” and mailed them to different, interested, scientific wit­nesses, one of whom was Dr. Gardner Murphy. Wilkins kept a diary and log and when the hundreds of impressions, recorded by me, were ultimately checked, an astonishing number of them was found to be highly accurate. The complete story of these experiments is now a part of another book, “Thoughts Through Space,” written with Sir Hubert Wilkins.

These experiments revealed to me much addi­tional unexpected knowledge concerning the nature and operation of higher consciousness in man. What I was able to accomplish, I firmly believe, that you, or any other person of good mind, who is willing to put forth the same effort, could reasonably duplicate. My interest in telepathy and this type of mental phenomena is strictly scientific. I see no purpose being served through those who make a parlor game of it. We still do not know enough about these partic­ular faculties of mind to take them so lightly or to experiment indiscriminately. I mention this work, simply to indicate to you the enormous possibilities ahead of evolving man.

Because you are living essentially in this physical world you are naturally interested in learning all you can about yourself which has practical, everyday value. A most pressing question you want answered is whether or not you do possess a power within your­self capable of solving all life’s problems and whether or not this power is really a part of the greatest power that ever is or ever can be–the power of God.

These questions I can answer, for you, because I have traveled the road of investigation you, too, might have wished to travel could life have afforded you that opportunity. What I say to you in every sen­tence in this book, I say with all the conviction of my being, and with the desire to pass on to you whatever truth I have gained and been able to prove.

So, now that we have become acquainted, let us ex­plore ourselves together.

We are all a part of this great, wonderful, univer­sal scheme of things. Your birth, your being here on earth, wasn’t an accident however accidental it may have seemed. Remember this–you are something–and something cannot come from nothing. You must have existed in some form before you were born or you couldn’t be here today. And you did exist al­though you are not conscious of this fact–but you existed in the Mind of the great, Infinite Intelligence, God, your Father.

Don’t try to understand God. We haven’t any words in any language that can possibly describe to our limited intelligence what God really is. This is not the way to try to get an idea of God. But you can be sure that this vast Intelligence we call God is a Personal Being. And how can you be sure of all this? Because everything in the universe–everything on earth–has personality, identity, individuality. There is not a leaf on any tree which is exactly similar to any other leaf on any other tree of the countless trees in all the forests. Each leaf has some slight little difference which distinguishes it from all others. The same is true of the trillions upon trillions of snowflakes which blanket so much of the earth in our winter seasons. You’ve seen the photographed and beautifully magnified designs of these individual snowflakes. Haven’t you marveled at the forces of nature which could have created these amazingly intricate designs, seemingly on the spur of the mo­ment, when cold currents of air, rushing together in the heavens, caused moisture to freeze and take on these white flaky forms!

Examine everything about you. You will find no exact similarity anywhere. What does this prove? It proves that this is not a carbon-copy universe. No duplicates are being created. Everything, no matter how seemingly trivial or insignificant to us, is an original–it has never existed before in just exactly this form and design and appearance. It will never exist again in just this way. Do you begin to see what I mean when I say that you are just as im­portant to this great scheme of things as any other human on earth?

You were created for a definite purpose. It was in­tended that you were to have a definite place to fill in life. It is up to you to find that place. You have been created a creature of free will. This God-power with­in you is not going to compel you to do what you came into this world with the opportunity of doing. You must discover what this is and decide to put forth the effort to do it yourself.

The reason the world is in its present state of threatened chaos is because so many humans have failed to find their destined purpose in life. If you’re unhappy, if you feel you’ve been making no progress, if you look upon your life as a failure, if you can see little hope for the future, then you haven’t yet found your individual pattern in God’s great plan. I tell you positively that your pattern is there and that your inner self contains the knowledge of this pattern and will reveal it to you once you look within yourself for the right answer.

Up to now you may not have realized that there was, and is, a Higher Intelligence within your own mind which can guide you. You’ve looked everywhere else for the answer to your problems in life but with­in yourself. I told you a moment ago that you can never describe God, the Great Intelligence, in words, but I say to you now, you can feel His Presence in your own mind and heart and once you sense the Presence it will be an undeniable, unmistakable ex­perience and you will then know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that you are never alone and that you have with you, at all times, all the power and wisdom you need to carry you happily and successfully along life’s rough road.

No one exactly resembling you in physical body or personality has ever existed before in all the count­less ages of the past with all the trillions of human creatures who have lived. And no one ever again, in all the countless ages to come, and with all the tril­lions upon trillions of humans yet to be born, will ever exactly resemble you in physical appearance or personality. I want you to think of this great fact for a moment.

All of the unhappy experiences you have had up to this present instant have been brought about be­cause you have either not been calling upon this power within or you have been misusing it. It’s through this life experience that you’ve been sup­posed to be awakened to the great possibilities within you. If you’ve reacted wrongly to what has happened to you–if you’ve blamed these things upon others or circumstances seemingly beyond your control–then you’ve not yet learned that there is a higher, finer way of doing things. Until you do learn, you are going to attract, through your own wrong thinking, many more wrong, unhappy happenings.

So, get busy on yourself. You are the one person for whom you are entirely responsible. Your world, your life can be better only if you make it so. As you improve yourself, you influence all others around you. Keep in mind that you came into this life with a purpose to perform. You can’t find that true purpose until you put aside your hates and bitter feelings.

There is going to come a time, within the next few years, when for you to persist in hating your fellow man, will be to put you out of step with all progress and with the laws of God as they were intended to operate on this earth. The happy, successful men and women in that day will be those who have learned to harness the God-power within them, to unite this Power, harmoniously, one with the other, to the end that the good of all may be served. This day is not so far distant as it may seem.

It makes no difference what age you are–you’re going to have an individual part in this new world if you waken to the spirit of God within you and let this spirit express through you. When this happens, you’ll not only get along with others, but you’ll have the understanding to get along with yourself.

These thoughts may seem new to you but what I am saying is what ministers and educators and sci­entists are saying to you in a different way. At last, we humans are to know the real truth about our­selves and this truth is going to make us free, even­tually, in body and in spirit. I urge you to accept what I have said on faith until you can prove the truth of it in your own life through the experiences I know you can attract by right thinking.

Remember–an equal part of God, the Great In­telligence dwells within you. No man or woman, how­ever prominent or influential, possesses more. Can’t you see then, the glorious opportunity, that we all have, to go forward together, with faith in each other, into the promised land of tomorrow?

It was not intended that man should be idle, that he should be dependent upon his fellow man or that he should not have opportunity to give full expres­sion to his developing talents and abilities. But the way man has been compelled to live, has made him, too often, lose sight of what he came into this life to accomplish. The struggle for existence has taken from man the time he has needed to get acquainted with his own self and to discover that he has a God-given power within him which can bring him a hap­piness of body and mind of which he has not dreamed.

Is a man necessarily happy because he slaves each day to earn enough money to buy food and clothes and shelter for his loved ones and himself? Is the rich man happy with his riches alone? Is a wife satis­fied with the drudgery of housework? Are the duties of this world appealing in themselves? You know they are not–not a single one of them. They have to have a purpose behind them–some vital, under­standable reason why a person is willing to put forth an effort and make sacrifices and strive to overcome obstacles.

You’ve got to feel that what you are doing is worth while–that it’s really counting for something, that it’s being appreciated by somebody, that you are playing a part with your fellow humans in making this world a better place in which to live. You may not put this purpose in so many words, but if you feel dissatisfied, and discouraged and can’t see any future in what you are now doing–then you are out of step with your intended destiny in life and need to gain a deeper knowledge of yourself in order to discover your real place in the great scheme of things. I tell you positively that you have a place and no one can fill this place but you. So take a moment now to ask yourself if you have, as yet, found your real purpose in life.

Have you ever stopped to consider that you are where you are at this very moment because of what you are? Each new experience you’ve had in life has changed you, has done something to you, has given you a greater education, a greater wisdom, a greater understanding than you’ve ever had before whether you realize it or not. You may say, “But I’m worse off today than I was a few years or months ago.” If you are, it’s because you haven’t made proper use of the experiences and opportunities you have had.

If you could only know it, your failures have been just as important to you as your successes. Your failures could have taught you how not to do things and what to do next time in order to attain success. But you may have been so upset by your failures that you regarded your time and effort spent as a total loss. Every man or woman who has gained any worth-while success in life has had to learn to rise above failure and to use each failure as an added steppingstone to success.

When Dr. Ehrlich was finally able to give to the world his great cure for syphilis he called it “606” because he had failed 605 heart-breaking times be­fore he succeeded in developing this preparation. And Thomas Edison made over 10,000 separate and distinct efforts before he found the right combination of elements which would make possible the electric light. No woman becomes a good cook the first time she boils water or bakes a cake. No man jumps overnight from office boy to the presidency of a company. No seed planted in the ground becomes a full grown tree the next morning.

The forces of nature and the forces of man require time for their unfoldment and development. You can hurry your own progress only by a more earnest ap­plication to the work at hand. There are no real short cuts. The man who spends his time getting promoted through pull and influence seldom is able to hold any important position for which he has not been fitted by experience. The person who reaches a goal through bluff and pretense can lose it just as quickly, once exposed.

You can’t get something in this life for nothing–no matter how hard you try. It may seem so to you as you observe the lives of others. I’ve had friends say to me, “Look at So-and-So, he’s always getting the breaks! And he doesn’t do a thing to earn them.” But these friends aren’t in the best position to judge. They can’t be in this man’s shoes. They can’t pos­sibly know what sacrifices he’s made or what efforts he’s put forth in order to get where he has. All they can observe is the goal he has reached. If he has arrived at his goal through anything but honest effort and the application of his talents and experience, then he won’t last–he won’t succeed unless those with whom he works carry the load for him. Unhappily there are many in this life carrying just such a load for others.

The people who really do succeed are people with a purpose. They know where they are going and why they are going there. They’ve either known it early in life or they’ve discovered through bitter experi­ence and failure their real intended purpose and this discovery has led them on to the success which up to that time had eluded them. You can’t really succeed in this life without a purpose. You can make money, get married, have friends, and do all the things that other people do in life but you’ll always be restless, disappointed and dissatisfied unless behind every­thing you do is a consciousness of purpose.

If you would be a happy, contented and well-balanced person–physically, mentally and spiritu­ally–life must mean something to you personally. It must have a reason behind it and you must be able to feel that you’ve gained something from life that can never be lost. Do you feel that way now? Can you honestly say, as you analyze yourself, that you’ve found your purpose in life? If you’ve not, then you can never be assured of lasting happiness until you do. Take this moment to give thought to what your purpose is or may be in life. If you know what your purpose is, then resolve to stand behind it with all the courage and energy and faith you possess.

The great need, today, for each and every one of us is to find our purpose. Without it we are as aimless in our journey on the sea of life as a ship without a rudder. We have nothing to steer us or guide us.

Why do so many people go to pieces physically and mentally when they suffer financial loss? Because such men and women have established no real values beyond those represented by the almighty dollar. Life has had no meaning to them without it, and they have seen no purpose in trying to go on living. Without money they were helpless, practically paralyzed in body and in spirit. And yet the greatest, most won­derful forces of life were still about them, ready to respond to their bidding the instant they gained a new sense of values and came to realize the purpose for their existence.

You see–you came into this world to serve your fellow man and to be served by him. You can’t get away from this responsibility. You couldn’t continue to live without the daily toil of thousands of men and women whom you will never see. But what you are doing, as unimportant as it may seem to you, must mean something to someone else. The more civilized we have grown the more dependent we actually have become upon one another. This is an age of special skills and talents. Few of us can do more than one thing exceedingly well. But what we can do well we give in exchange to others who can return to us the services we are incapable of performing for our­selves.

Can you now begin to see the great pattern behind all life? Can you begin to sense the great scheme of things? You are as indispensable and as vitally need­ed to this scheme as anyone else. If you fail in your part, in your purpose–then the contribution you were intended to make during your lifetime here will be forever lost. No one just like you, with just your qualifications has ever lived before–and there will be no one ever again with just your possibilities.

You may not have been born with the physical and mental endowments of someone else, but you do pos­sess an absolutely equal portion of this God-given creative power within your own mind. No human being–and no force on earth–can take this power from you. It is yours to call upon as you wish and if you know your real purpose in life then you are in complete harmony with the working of this God-given power and you are certain to reach your goal and render your intended service.

Right now–this minute–whoever you are–wher­ever you are–you can call upon this God-given power within you by an effort of your will. Deep down within you, if you will think as you are reading these lines, you’ll know what you should have been doing with your life if you are not. Your real inner self knows what you came here with the opportunity of doing. It knows whether you’ve failed thus far in accomplishing it. It knows whether you’ve allowed yourself to become sidetracked on one of life’s many byways and whether you’ve passed up the oppor­tunities which have been given you to make the most of your life.

Yes, this part of God, the Great Intelligence, which dwells within you, knows all these things. But you have been created a creature of free will. You will never be compelled to fulfill your intended destiny in life. This has been left to you as a matter of your free choice.

If you feel now that you have failed in whole or in part–if you feel that you’ve not lived up to the best that’s within you, don’t waste any time feeling bad over the past but find your purpose now and look ahead to the goal which can still be yours. This goal may never win you any earthly recognition or re­ward; this goal may not bring you any plaudits of the crowd or financial gain or even human appreciation–but for you to have realized in your own mind and heart that you have a purpose to fulfill–that you have a rendezvous with your own destiny and that this calls for your doing the best you can in whatever situation you find yourself, no matter how great the obstacle or trying the circumstance, is for you to have lived your life triumphantly and well.

Your purpose, then, is to meet life the best you can, each step of the way, in the knowledge and faith that all things of this world can be taken from you, but you still have lost nothing because you are at peace with your real self. You know now, at last, the truth of that old saying “Greater is he who gaineth his own soul, than he who taketh a city.”

There’s a new day dawning. Perhaps from your hilltop in life you cannot see this new day as yet. Perhaps you are still in the valley of fear and despair. Perhaps you’ve been enshrouded by the dark mantle of grief. Perhaps it seems to you that you can never know joy again. But even in the midst of these ter­rible world conditions I believe in this new day.

This day is dawning, first in the hearts and minds of men–in your heart and my heart–in your mind and my mind. There’s a complete change coming–a change in man’s attitude toward his fellow man. We are all going to know, beyond a shadow of doubt, why we are here together on this earth and what our in­dividual and common purposes are. We’re going to see clearly, for the first time, what we need to do to work together with peoples of different nations but of the same human family. We’re going to see that since we each possess an equal part of God, the Great Intelligence, within–none of us should be favored over another. We’re going to realize that only by giv­ing this God-power within us a free and unlimited opportunity for expression can we gain the happiness in life we seek.

This God-power has been with us throughout our entire lives but we haven’t begun to make full or intelligent use of it. If we had, World Wars I and II couldn’t have been–nor the other great wars of his­tory. We have preferred to rely upon our animal natures, our own emotions and material desires, to get for us what we’ve thought we wanted. But, after we’ve gotten it–wealth, position, worldly power–we then know that it still doesn’t mean anything–that something deeply satisfying is missing–that until we feel that we’ve become united with some­thing higher and finer within our own selves, and have found our real place in the scheme of things, nothing else we’ve accomplished matters.

Are you happy with wealth or without it? Is it because you possess wealth or because you lack wealth that you are unhappy?

In this new day that is dawning you’re going to be compelled to give up many things upon which you’ve placed high value but you’re going to possess other things of real and lasting value–the love and under­standing of your fellow man. This one development alone is going to change the face of the earth and all things upon it. Those of you who fail to recognize this fact and insist on clinging to the old order of class distinction and race prejudice and creedal dif­ference and various kinds of hates and fears are going to find yourselves out of step and unable to keep pace with the new marching song of a united humanity.

There’s a time of trouble and possible discord still ahead, but I can hear the strains of a new harmony breaking through. That is why I am urging you to gain the right to live your own life and then to find, at all costs, your real purpose in life. Once you do this you’ll be ready to take your part in the world of tomorrow.

I suggest to you now, that you set aside a time, each day, preferably in the evening after your day’s work is done, to sit quietly and look ahead, with con­fidence and faith in the future. Ask yourself each night if you’ve done everything humanly possible to further your purpose. Ask of this God-power within that you be given increasing knowledge and wisdom. Picture yourself being a better husband or wife–a better mother or father to your children–a better daughter or son to your parents, a better friend to all who give you their friendship, and a better person in every way.

If you will do this, your purpose in life will reveal itself to you. Each thought and act will take on new meaning and you will feel yourself unmistakably a part of the great plan for human betterment which is unfolding on this earth.

One of our great troubles in the world of Today is the fact that we developed so fast mechanically and scientifically, we couldn’t keep pace mentally and spiritually. We didn’t know how to use our mechani­cal and scientific marvels for our own good. We lost sight of the purpose behind these great inventions, which came through the minds of men as a result of the workings of this great God-given power within them.

These wonderful advances in science and industry were intended to free us all–not to enslave us, physi­cally and economically–to free us so that we might find our real purpose in life and go forward together–all races, colors and creeds–toward a single great goal of human achievement–Universal Brotherhood. But somehow–because the lower side of us is still close to animal we got lost along the way. Somehow, our greeds and hates and prejudices and fears and distrust of our fellow man came in like a hurricane to destroy these higher and finer ambitions within us and bring upon the world this present chaos. All this time God, the Great Intelligence, has not deserted us but we have deserted Him.

This God-power is just as much a part of us now as it has always been. But, remember–we’ve been created creatures of free will and free choice. We’ll never be compelled to draw upon this God-power. We must do it of our free will. And when we do, we lift ourselves immediately above the animal in us to this higher self–this part of God, the Great Intelli­gence–and then we know, perhaps for the first time, that we really are more than animal . . . that there’s something in us which is eternal . . . some­thing that is going to survive what we call death . . . something that knows it is here for a purpose . . . and that something is your own self–your own soul.

There’s so much to tell you about yourself and I desire to make it as clear to you as I possibly can. But I do not wish you to accept these statements of mine on faith alone. I want you to take them with an open mind and prove them out in your own life. It would be very difficult to prove to an African native that the air was full of sounds he could not hear unless you had a radio set with you and could turn it on and take these sounds out of the air. But all I’m telling you I’ve proved to my satisfaction in my own life. And you must prove these same truths for yourself.

Once you are convinced beyond all doubt that this God-power dwells within you, you’ll develop a cour­age and a faith you never dreamed possible. You’ll be able to face any condition in life, no matter how diffi­cult, with a calmness and a poise and a confidence of overcoming it. This is what I promise you who will sincerely strive to understand yourself and to follow your real purpose in life.

How can you accomplish your purpose in life? It can’t be done by wearing yourself out physically and mentally with fears and worries and all the destruc­tive emotions such as greed and hate. You see, your real self knows why you are here and what you are supposed to do with your life. But if you get mixed up with all your physical desires and fears and wor­ries and haven’t learned how to control them, then you’re very apt to lose sight of your goal and live a restless, aimless, unsatisfactory, disappointed life.

You can easily recognize the man or woman with a purpose. There’s something magnetic and appealing about them which sets them apart. This is because these people have been knowingly using each experi­ence which comes to them as a foundation stone in their life of purpose and they are expressing this purpose in everything they do.

A person may have a fine singing voice and be tech­nically perfect in the rendition of every song, but unless he has lived and expresses understanding and genuine feeling in his singing, he’ll never touch a responsive chord in his listeners. Madame Schumann-Heink, who had two sons on each side of the first World War, took a little German folk song, “Silent Night–Holy Night,” and breathed into it her own mother-love, and touched the heart of all humanity.

Yehudi Menuhin, one of the world’s greatest vio­linists, is noted for the generous giving-out of his rare talent. A few years ago, in a summer concert at Lewisohn Stadium in New York, Mr. Menuhin re­mained playing encores long after the orchestra had left and the lights had been turned out. He played on under the stars, as his listeners joined their souls with his and felt, through the medium of music, a kinship with the finest things in life.

Purpose means everything to each one of us, young or old. It’s fine to have a book education, but unless it can be applied to life and living and the betterment of mankind, a person can be trapped by his own intellectual attainments and lose the very thing he’s seek­ing. It’s great to become a doctor but all the letters in the alphabet after his name will mean nothing until through his knowledge he saves a life. There’s no nobler profession on earth than motherhood but a mother has not attained her real purpose until she has trained her children to take their places in the world and has given them to the world.

You’ll find once your life is dominated by your pur­pose that you’ll want to give freely and joyously of your talents and services because you’ll know that they don’t belong to you alone and should not selfishly be withheld from the world. All of the planet’s great spiritual leaders, inspired as they’ve been by their high purpose, have recognized this great universal truth, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” When you begin giving yourself, in keeping with your own purpose in life, you’ll commence growing and developing and you’ll know in your mind and heart that you’ve found your place in life, and that the world itself is better for your having lived!

Your life is just what you make it by your think­ing. The successful man or woman pictures success and puts forth every effort to help bring this success to pass. No man can really succeed who lacks faith in himself. This creative power, within your mind, can’t work for you unless you have this faith. Your fears destroy this faith. They keep you from thinking right and acting right. If what you want in life has not come to you, it’s up to you to eliminate all fear thoughts.

I know that you, who read these words, may be living a life of fear and worry. You can’t bear the thought of being alone, or going out on the street by yourself. You’re afraid you may be losing your mind or that evil influences are surrounding you. Behind all this is, perhaps, a terrorizing fear of death.

And, I say to you who fear, that you are never alone–that a part of God, the Great Intelligence, dwells within you–that you only have to learn how to call upon this great and unlimited God-power in order to be guided and protected.

Remember–this power is supposed to be your servant. It’s supposed to take orders from you in the form of the mental pictures you give it of what you wish to be or do. And if your mental pictures are right–if your thinking is correct–what happens to you will be right!

You can’t possibly fear once you’ve come really to know and feel the presence of God–within you! There isn’t a force on earth–a man or woman or cir­cumstance of any kind–that can really hurt or affect you so long as you place your faith in this God-power–and exercise your will to think the right thoughts. Once you do your part, God will do His.

But you must do your part first and, when you do, you’ll find a new strength and courage sufficient to meet every situation in life. Faith in yourself and faith in God are the key to mastery of fear.

Fear cannot remain in the presence of faith. I give you now something to repeat each morning as you awaken and each night as you drop off to sleep: “Fear knocked at the door–faith opened it–and there was nothing there.”

Courage, then, to face and solve your life problems as you should. Your Key to Happiness is knowledge of self and I now present to you, in the pages to come, this Key! But you must open the door to this new understanding, yourself. Do not read this book–STUDY it! Start practicing right thinking from this moment on–and good things will commence happen­ing to you. It won’t be long before you’ll be joining the chorus of increasing thousands of men and women who are joyously testifying “It works!”

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