This is such a huge chapter. Not only just in size but in scope of meaning. Fears are painful. Realizing you’ve lived a life in fear is painful. STOP IT! Especially since they are really only made of thought! Your thought, others thoughts, …thoughts that manifest pain into your life, your body, relationships, future…   I personally have seen these fears in myself for a long time. The key I was missing was How to combat them and also Why should I combat them. Why did I keep them for so long? Was it to have a feeling of belonging to a greater group of people, in order to feel like a part of a larger whole? Playing mind games on myself.

Through the knowledge in this chapter, the intangible thoughts that were hidden in a fog of indecision and doubt, have begun to shine clear, raising the haze. They have become recognizable in myself and those around me. The invisible cage we create for ourselves! It makes me want to shout out loud to everyone in the world, “Look at what you’re doing to yourself! STOP IT! You have the key to your cage! Open it! Please…be free.” Stop owning your negative thoughts. Change them. Learn the power of the positive thoughts and drive away the fog of fear of: poverty, criticism, ill-health, loss of love, old age and death. Recognize when they infringe in your mind and drive them away. Learn your enemies in order to conquer them. This is an absolute must. FEAR IS ONLY false evidence appearing real. Learn the power of Desire and Habit, and take action, you’ll feel better; I do.

 ”One’s state of mind is subject to control and direction.” Napoleon Hill

“Nature has endowed man with absolute control over but one thing, and that is THOUGHT. ” Napoleon Hill

Don’t worry. Worry is just another form of fear. Don’t let it dig itself in and be paralyzed. Through a positive mental attitude backed by self-talk habit and some one to point the way, worry disappears in the light that burns away the fog.

Fight these fears, conquer yourself, recognize them in your self and decide to do what ever it takes to keep them at bay to live happy. Learn how to protect yourself against negative influences. Whether of your own making or the  result of others. Recognize that you have a will-power to back your new habits with. Will every day be a success? No, we are human after all, but, the more you keep at it, the less susceptible you will be. Also, don’t forget to work through your subconscious mind. Constantly remind it what you want. Clean out your house, just like you are cleaning out your mind. Get rid of all the old medicine bottles and things that remind you of bad times. Seek the company of people who want you to think and act for yourself. Create new good memories.

“The world only wants to know; have you succeeded?” Napoleon Hill

What will keep you from succeeding? Only you, the alibis and “What if’s” you create.

“The first and best victory is to conquer self. To be conquered by Self is, of all things, the most shameful and vile.” Plato

This quote was a real a-ha moment for me. You see, I recognized that I had conquered self in the past from time to time, but I hadn’t had a name for it. I would just do it after realizing I was stuck and not moving forward on something I wanted to do. I would have to sit down and ask my self why I wasn’t doing the things that would bring me to the goal I wanted to accomplish.

Most recently, it had occurred when rereading this chapter again and wanting to write about it. I was finding it to be painful to collect my thoughts and write. I found that I had to first get all the fears and negative thoughts out of me. I actually had to vent them on paper first, then the words came for writing this.

Another example happened in February when reading this book for the first time. I desperately wanted to do what was in the book, take the steps, but I found myself not doing it. For three weeks I didn’t think anything of it, just went about my business and kept reading. Then, right before reaching this chapter, I realized I wasn’t  acting, there was a subconscious block. I stopped and took some time to dig deep and find out why. It took another week. One morning upon waking, it was suddenly there in my mind, why I hadn’t been moving forward, why I had been stuck. It was fear. Fear of success, reaching the wonderful goals I had in mind, fear of freedom. I almost couldn’t believe what had been holding me back; then I continued reading Think and Grow Rich, and it became clearer. The invisible box of fear I had trapped my mind in has since opened, and they become more and more distant patches of fog in the light.

“You either control your mind or it controls you.” Napoleon Hill

Thank you,

Vanessa Hart Colorado USA

By Deepak Chopra

We are all quite certain that we have a self. When you say “I like chocolate” or “I vote progressive,” no one asks what you mean by “I.” That task was left for centuries to philosophers and theologians. “Know thyself” is an axiom worth heeding, but what is there to know? If one camp of modern science has its way, the answer is “nothing.” The self, we are told, is an illusion created by the complexity of brain functions. As thousands of inputs bombard each other every second, forming an almost infinite tangle of neural messages, a ghost was created whose name is “I.”

Thus, in one stroke the problem that has intrigued humanity’s greatest minds — “Who am I?” — is reduced to a mirage or fairy tale. The search for the self has proved fruitless when brain scans are consulted. There is no known location for “I” in the brain, and this lack leads one of two ways: Either the self is pervasive or it doesn’t exist. Claiming that “I” is an illusion would seem like a cheap way to shrug off a very difficult problem. Yet there is some backing for this position in the Buddhist concept of “emptiness,” which holds that all transitory events, including all of our personal experiences, are fabricated by the ego-personality. If we give up our cherished clinging to “I, me, and mine,” freedom lies in the realization that there is no fixed self, no fixed mind, not even such a thing as consciousness.

Yet when they combine their efforts, Buddhism and neuroscience can’t convince the ordinary person that “I” is a ghost, and there’s another tradition that considers the self the richest part of who we are, the source of unlimited potential for creativity, intelligence and evolution. In short, there’s a contest between the higher self and no self. Until a small band of scientific skeptics and atheists stepped forward, waving the banner of absolute materialism, the no-self camp was decidedly in the minority. But materialists see an advantage in denying that “I” exists. For them, it isn’t an exotic minority position with little bearing on daily life. No-self falls in with a larger notion that consciousness is just a byproduct of chemical reactions in the brain.

How did chemicals learn to think? Why is the sugar that feeds brain cells capable of writing Shakespeare, while the sugar cubes in a coffee bar are not? Materialists have no answer. They assume, with religious conviction, that chemicals learned to think somewhere in the long evolution of the human brain. This is really a form of animism, like worshiping the spirit in a rock or tree. It seems like a nice trick to go a step farther and call consciousness an illusion, since that strips all metaphysics and spirituality of any validity. But no one has come remotely close to explaining how chemicals create the illusion of thought, which is not very different from “real” thought.

I think the higher self position is the valid one, but it’s not monolithic. There are unambiguous claims among devout Christians that everyone has a soul that will be redeemed by God; this is the higher self as a person’s true core, the part made by God. But in the Indian tradition, there is room for ambiguity. The Buddhist position that the ego-personality is the cause of suffering is echoed in Vedanta by the doctrine of Maya, which holds that “I” is trapped in an illusion of its own making, the illusion that the material world is the ultimate reality and that we are defined by all kinds of external things: money, status, possessions, job, family ties. These props keep the everyday “I” going, but they are actually like waves in the ocean. A wave looks separate and individual when in reality it is nothing but an event in the ocean; its true nature is nothing but ocean.

This search to find our true nature raises the mystery of “I” above arcane arguments among philosophers and neuroscientists. Matters of suffering are at stake, not to mention psychological disorders, relationships, crime and anything else where the self either goes wrong or behaves in inexplicable ways. If we are machines that harbor the delusion of personal dignity, why not sweep away “I” and treat criminals, the depressed and anyone else with a problem by injecting different, better chemicals into their brains? That goal has become standard practice in medicine, yet more and more we are witnessing the dire effects of re-engineering the brain chemically. The alternative is to find out who this “I” really is, because that knowledge, which seems pretty important to begin with, leads to a redefinition of what crime, suffering, mental disorders and relationship problems actually mean. It’s the most fascinating mystery anyone can face, standing at the very start of the spiritual quest.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The entire world has had to endure the endless suffering of Man, all while having to preserve and evolve itself in the constant process of growth and decay. Nobody truly knows the truth – how history really unravelled, how scenes actually played out, and who truly lost, and won.

There is only one thing we know for certain – that we know nothing for certain. The only reality that exists for any of us, is that which we perceive to be real. For example, before one people discovered another, the other did not exist. Reality is like a vast empty void which only comes into being upon enlightenment and awareness.

Even so, it is possible to engage and encapsulate the emtpiness, within the mind of Man, and to be that which is not. For it is only through experiencing the nothingness that we experience the all. The infinite. God. God is not some white bearded man sitting upon a golden throne above the clouds. Nay. God is everything. Even nothing. Especially nothing.

To consider the vastness of space and time is to be at one with Oneness. How else could one even fathom the thought, but by letting go of everything held close and dear. A speck of a speck of a speck on a speck in a speck within a speck of a speck is what we are. And yet still, each and every one of us operates from the center of Universe.

Universe – Singularity – Oneness – All.

With each and every moment that passes, we are offered a unique and irreversible opportunity to know Self. No matter what, remember always, we are One.

Namaste, Mús

The Sleepy Moose – Waking up to the world around, and the world within.

Occasionally a Business Warrior will slay a part of his personality self, in order to make better progress along this self realization pathway—this is the dragon slaying of ancient human mythology.

It is not meant that we should be conscious- fully awake—all of the time. A Business Warrior knows how to listen to inner talking, sense and acknowledge rising negative emotions, feel and acknowledge body stresses, all for the sake of waking up at the right moments to make intentional choices about best response, most useful strategies and work.

Like driving a car, the Business Warrior knows that it is not necessary to be spiritually conscious all of the time. The body, and the mind provide the awakening messages. All that is required is that we learn to listen to and feel these wake-up messages—then make intentional conscious choices about what we want to be and do at each conscious moment.

Business Warriors have learned that, like driving a car for long periods, there is not much to gain by focusing all mental and emotional energy on driving. They have also learned—usually the hard way—that it is a great mistake and a missed opportunity to not awaken when a very large bus starts to move toward you into your lane. It might make sense at that point to wake-up and consciously decide best response.

Business Warriors are learning who they are and working to put themselves into a work role, a social role, an activity role that will keep them on the path towards fulfillment.

The Core Values Index™ and the Human Operating System™ that is reveal through the CVI™ are the key to Maslow’s final step toward meaning. These new innovations provide a pathway, an identifiable process that leads any person to fulfillment and meaning. The elements of human living that make-up this ultimate step in human development are:

• Know who you are-   made possible for the first time through the CVI
• Know and optimize the competencies in what you are—the physical self
• Identify and begin aligning all activities toward your callings
• Explore and know your magnitude of mission.
• Put yourself in your place of highest and best contribution which leads to continuous
• Experience of peak performance at ever higher levels of contribution.

• Negative emotions
• Fears
• Personality beliefs, attitudes and ideas
• Inner talking
• Body language– stresses

All of these dragons are first and foremost, keys or messages from our subconscious that, if observed and acknowledged, become the key to awakening. We are able to lift ourselves into consciousness when any of these messages arise. They are there to help us learn when to shift from one core value energy to another. They are there so we can remain the in contributing mode at all times, not resorting to the taking and getting mode of operation that is the domain or our personalities.

These demons or mythological dragons are:

            The Intimidator of a power person

            The Manipulator of a love person

            The Interrogator of a wisdom person

            The Aloof Judge of a knowledge person

These all exist at some level within each warrior’s innate unchanging nature. It is these dragons that we are each called to slay.

Business Warriors know who they really are. They know their Core Values Nature™ and how it operates. They are constantly becoming more and more conscious at this core values level. They are in the business of awakening at the first impulse to react at the personality level. They are in the business of shifting out of their current core value energy into another energy that is strong in them.

If we are not conscious of a negative attitude that is limiting our performance, we are not able to decide to think differently. If we don’t learn to think and believe differently, we will not act differently, and we will never get different results. If we cannot see and appreciate the different Core Values Nature of others, we cannot make adult adjustments in our communications, interactions, and participation with others.

What we don’t know about ourselves limits our ability to work with others in a team and frustrates us in our desire to move forward. We have to continuously increase the understanding of our basic nature and the behaviors that we practice, due to our innate values, in order to be successful and find fulfillment in our work.

We must also become aware of the personality/fear-based reactions that we rely upon and that we have well-rationalized in our adult life. These patterns of behavior, our learned adaptive behaviors, represent only a warped version of our Real Core Values Nature™. Learning to see this, and learning how to make more conscious choices about our reactions to certain kinds of people in certain kinds of circumstances provides a whole new world of conscious choices. This is the personal development purpose and contribution of the Core Values Index.

It was a long conversation, encompassing a wide range of topics, but I came out on the other side learning one thing: I need to know who I am.

All too often we bury ourselves in things. We try to define ourselves through relationships, hobbies, goals, but never by who we truly are. Throughout my life, I have tried to define myself through friends, family, relationships.

I’m not an independent person.

It’s quite possible that I’ve never spent enough time by myself to truly know who I actually am, unattached from anyone. I don’t think it is bad to enjoy the company of others, but am I really enjoying their company, or thriving upon it?

I’ve changed over the years, but my definition of myself has always be a steady and increasing need for dependence. Not even solely a dependence on other people, but a desire to be depended upon. I want to know that someone is in my life, and I want to know I’m in theirs.  Why is it that I don’t feel I was made to survive on my own?

We were all made to be around people. I may just need it more.

-Redefined.