Chapter 15. Inspiration And The Subconscious

We have now, under various chapter headings, discussed the first three formula points: Gather Your Ingredients; Classify Your Ingredients; Preparation. We shall now take up Inspiration, and in this, the subconscious plays a major part.

Romantically, perhaps, you picture Inspiration as a benevolent goddess, suddenly appearing from nowhere, filling your dreams with visions of delight and presenting you with a ready-made masterpiece. Unfortunately, it just isn't like that. Inspiration is real, but when it comes to you it will be in a less romantic form. It may appear as just one word which strikes your ear. It may be a vague tenuous thought: which you feel, if it will only hold still a second, perhaps you can grasp it. But whatever it is, you feel instinctively that it holds the seed of a literary composition or a work of art or a scientific formula or some other idea. But that little seed must germinate and grow before develops into a plant and finally comes into bloom. Inspiration will supply you with the seed only. It will not offer the full-grown plant. It is for you to capture, cultivate and nurture that seed so that it does not perish.

You realize, of course, that at any particular moment you are aware or conscious of only an infinitesimal portion of the entire contents of your mind. You have much knowledge, many feelings, beliefs, likes and dislikes, memories, and so on, of which you are not thinking at this moment, no matter how mentally active and alert you may be. Your past experiences include ideas, plans, longings, aspirations, purposes, and the like. Even though your present thoughts are not directed to them, you know that if you do put your attention upon them, they rise to the plane of ordinary consciousness and you become aware of them, if you so desire. That is what occurs when you "think" about things. You start into motion the stream of recollection and memory.

In other words, you have two kinds of knowing-one, that which results from your present awareness of things, and two, that which you have in reserve, stored away and on call, in your subconscious. These contents are just as real when submerged as when raised to consciousness. In fact the mind has often been compared to an iceberg of which seven eighths is submerged. To restrict your mind to your conscious states and ignore the far greater powers below is a great loss and waste of personal resources.

When intelligently exercised, the mind may produce anything, change anything, create anything and transform anything in one's life and conditions. Everything is the product of an idea, and therefore all things are dependent for existence upon ideas. The forces of life are directed by the ideas of the individual, both on conscious and subconscious levels. Marvellous unseen vibrations are constantly at work to produce conditions, events and things in the outer world, and these invisible powers are subject to the active conscious control of the individual.

The mind is a very much more remarkable instrument for thought than we usually appreciate. So-called logical thinking, direct from premise to conclusion, is only one kind of product of the brain. Not every kind of problem can be handled by this means. Many problems are too perplexing, and only too often the individual does not possess sufficient information on which logical thinking can be based.

Most of us use our conscious minds entirely too hard, with the result that our thinking and our decisions are not so good as they might be. The trouble is, we are working with only part of our minds, and with less than half of our accumulated judgment and experience. The whole mind, including intuition and subconsciousness must be used if ordinary thinking cannot solve the problem. For not only are vast stores of knowledge within, but remarkable mental activity and processes go on ceaselessly, even when the conscious mind is at rest. These processes are often believed to be devoted to physical care of the body - the automatic processes of breathing, digestion, heart beat, cell reproduction, nerve and muscular activity, all of which go on within us without our consciously thinking about them. In addition to this physiological functioning, we know that the subconscious controls habits, memory, and is the seat of the emotional life.

But we are not all aware of the fact, equally true, that this same tremendous power within is qualified to solve your problems, answer your questions, form your judgments, and produce ideas for you. If we are willing to ascribe to the subconscious the physical and emotional powers we know, it should not be so difficult to accept the fact that so-called "ordinary" mental activity can be performed with equal effectiveness by this power.

The truth is that a large part of the mental processes of any and all kinds are performed wholly or in part on levels of consciousness below the levels of ordinary consciousness. Modern psychology has so thoroughly demonstrated this that it is hardly necessary to do more than mention it.

The biographies of great scientists, inventors, writers, and others employing constructive imagination are filled with examples of the workings of the subconscious faculties. They show conclusively how highly creative people regard these "below the surface" processes.

Robert Louis Stevenson was fond of referring to his subconscious mental faculties as his "Brownies", borrowing the name from the familiar fairy tale in which are told the kind acts of the friendly little Brownies who each night finished the work left undone by the overworked friendly shoemaker who had befriended the tiny creatures. Stevenson said: "My Brownies! God bless them-who do half of my work for me when I am fast asleep, and in all likelihood do the rest for me when I am wide awake and foolishly suppose that I do it for myself."

Yet as he praised the work of his little subconscious Brownies, Stevenson did not deny the important part played by his conscious mind in his creative efforts. He says: "I am an excellent adviser, something like Moliere's servant; I pull back and I cut down; and I dress the whole in the best words and sentences that I can find and make. I hold the pen, too; and I do the sitting at the table, which is about the worst of it; and when all is done, I make up the manuscript and pay for the registration; so that on the whole, I have some claim to share, though not so largely as I do, in the profits of our common enterprise."

Some people who hear of the powers of the subconscious wonder why we have a conscious mentality at all. Since the subconscious can do in a fraction of a second tasks that require hours of work for the conscious mind, they unduly praise the latter and belittle the former. This mistrust of the conscious is deplorable, for both conscious and subconscious are essential and the best results are obtained when each performs its proper duties. The conscious mind is the path to the subconscious. The subconscious suffers if this path is not well guarded. The conscious is also the way back from the subconscious to the outward world.

The subconscious is completely amenable to suggestion. It does not judge, but accepts as true every message sent to it or impressed upon it by the conscious mind. Every such message, whether true or false, it stores in memory as a fact. You see, then, the importance of giving true and accurate facts to the subconscious. If the information as accepted by the conscious mind is correct, the return message from the subconscious will also be correct. If it is incorrect, the return message will be wrong. In other words, the conscious mind directs, and the subconscious accomplishes in accordance with the direction.

The subconscious cannot reason inductively. In its own realm it has no need to do so, for it has access to all knowledge. But man would be at a decided disadvantage if he could not reason inductively on the physical plane. Be that as it may, you have no choice of deciding whether you will use your subconscious or not, as we use it ceaselessly as sure as breathing. Your only choice is whether you will work with it correctly and constructively, or wrongly and destructively. The proper methods are given in this portion of the book.

As has already been shown, the best plan to pursue is first of all to decide with your conscious mind what you want to accomplish. Think about it all the time. Your thoughts, like the molecules in steel, can either concentrate their power or they can scatter it. All depends on how they are organized. If you organize your thoughts around a definite purpose, and keep that purpose steadfastly in mind, you will give them a direction which will lead to its fulfillment. The basic power of each thought adds its strength to that of each other thought. In time the combination forms a mighty concentration of magnetic force for attraction as well as a powerful current of energy for action.

It is for this that we have stressed all along the necessity of saturating your mind with the subject in question before setting your subconscious the task of rumination over your problem. You should bring into consciousness every associated or related principle that is possible to you. You should read and listen to all possible points of view on the subject. There is no need to be discouraged by any contradictions and seemingly irreconcilable points of view. You may have full confidence that your subconscious will thoroughly digest and assimilate the mental food which you provide it.

People in general do not realize the immense amount of mind energy that is lost in confused, indecisive, aimless and destructive thought. Emotionalism, vexation or anger, wear out the mind and body more in ten minutes than ten hours of manual labor can do. These emotional states react on the central nervous system and glands, and interfere with the chemistry of the body. It can recover quickly from mere physical fatigue, but not from the emotional exhaustion. When the nervous system is irritated, it recovers slowly. As Prof. William James says, "God may forgive our sins, but our nervous system never does."

If you allow your thoughts to follow one road today and another the next, your mind power will be scattered. This is particularly the case if you add negative ideas such as fear, worry, hate, or discontent. Then your thought forces will be worse than wasted. Dissipated in unproductive or destructive thoughts, there is nothing left for constructive thinking.

Why not resolve, then, to concentrate your thoughts along the lines of your true and most important desires, and avoid the mental leakage which results from the misuse of our conscious mind in diffusion, worry, regrets, and uncontrolled imagination. Your accomplishment can be amazing if all the misdirected thought energy were conserved and productively employed. Confused judgment, inefficiency and mistakes can be eliminated, and the powers desired can be cultivated.

The mind should not be driven when tired, to concentrate or make important decisions. A better result will be had when the mind is rested and relaxed. When there is difficulty in solving a problem, lay it aside for a while. It often happens that one accumulates a mass of facts and is then unable to advance further by direct thinking. In such cases it is frequently found that after a lapse of time, the obscurity and confusion clear away by themselves; the facts settle themselves in their right places, without apparent aid from yourself. Your subconscious mind, working independently, progresses toward the solution.

So you see, there are but three things to be done. First, concentrate your conscious attention upon the task until your mind is saturated with it. Second, form the mental picture of transferring the general thought from the conscious level down to the subconscious. Third, give the subconscious the positive, clear, definite command or direction concerning what you wish it to do for you in the matter.

It might even be said that the conscious performance of creative thinking is limited to the first stage in which the germ of the creative process is carefully considered in consciousness, and the initial impulse is imparted to it. After this it is placed in the subconscious field for incubation. From there it may be returned from time to time in the course of its development for supervision or examination. Adjustments, suggestions or improvements may then be added, after which the incomplete process is again returned to the subconscious for continued work. When it has been completed, it is returned to the levels of consciousness for a final inspection and for any necessary finishing touches.

Most of the creative process, you see, is performed subconsciously.

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