Chapter 2
The Power of Your Mind

“Don’t be afraid of your God – be afraid of yourself.

You are the creator of your own troubles and joy.

Heaven and hell are in your own soul.”

Sylvain Marechal

One of the top secrets of your life is that YOU can rule your own life and your body with THE POWER OF YOUR MIND.

What is a thought? Many people still search for answers to this intricate question. Some consider a thought to be an act of mind. Others suppose it’s a sensory image produced by one’s mind. Also, a thought is something expressed by a sound, a phrase or a pronounced message.

Let’s consider a thought as something in your mind at this very moment.

“Thinking means nothing but talking and listening to oneself.”

E. Kant

You might have wondered what exactly rules this world pulling the invisible strings of millions of human lives.

Our minds do that. I know it probably sounds weird to you. Thought is incipient action. Our mind makes us act the way we think, say what’s on our minds. Our minds are enormously powerful.

If you desire to become a success, then you need to start with the basis. And that is your own mind.

Our journey continues in a very cozy place named Foros. It is buried in abundant verdure of exotic plants. Picturesque ponds are interconnected by numerous little waterfalls. The local air, water and nature are salubrious. It’s the best place for any start, and it’s perfect for studying the process of generating thoughts.

Let’s try to feel as one with this breathtaking scenery. Look, there is Fedor Shalyapin’s favorite arbor! Let’s take a seat inside and relax a bit, admiring the amazing view. Now, listen and try to understand all the new information I’ve got for you.

How many thoughts are there in your head? There’s a whole lot, isn’t there? The millions of images your life consists of have been created in your mind. Each small thought matters, to say nothing of the whole rows of thoughts! 65 thoughts are born in your mind every second: they are little fragments of thoughts and the deep, profound ones.

Every thought possesses great power, despite its size. It imprints on your subconscious mind. With the help of all these imprints your mind creates your own reality.

Let us call our thoughts seeds, soon you’ll see why. Take a look around. What do you see? Almost two hundred kinds of exotic plants grow here: palms, fir-trees, magnolias among them. There’s also a forest further up, which had appeared long before this park did. Most of these plants sprung from small seeds. Seeds absorb water and begin to swell as they get into soil. This uptake nourishes the bud and it sprouts. The amount of water required for this process differs from one plant to another. For example, magnolia seeds need more water than gerbera seeds do. Just imagine millions of plants sprout from just one little seed! Flowers, vegetables, fruit and gigantic trees grow the same way.

Thoughts are just like seeds planted in a bed of rich soil of your mind.

Once in your mind, the seeds start to feed on your energy, which is like water for plants. It enables even a tiny thought to sprout and flourish, and one day turn it into a big tree.

Plants grow everywhere: in forests, in fields, in hot deserts, on top of mountains, even in the Arctic! And despite their quantity, every one of them remains unique.

We’re surrounded by gorgeous azaleas and magnolias, marvelous roses, fragrant fir-trees and pine-trees.

They are all different: beautiful and unattractive, poisonous and harmless, strong and weak. There are also plants that grow where nothing seems to be able to survive.

And every plant has its own time to bloom. Tulips choose early spring and mums prefer autumn which keeps the garden beautifully blooming and delightfully fragrant almost all year round.

Lovely flowers and sharp thorns, dangerous predator plants and the exquisite Japanese cherry trees grow from tiny little seeds. Your thoughts are just like these seeds. And someday they will all become your harvest eventually.

Some seeds grow into beautiful flowers, others become dangerous-looking thorns. As you sow so shall you reap.

Poor harvest follows every time you plant bad, evil seeds of thought. But if you sow thoughts of joy, goodwill and happiness, you reap a glorious harvest!

Every seed requires time to grow. So, if you enjoy your life now, acting or thinking bad, that doesn’t mean it’s going to last long. It always takes time for any seed to sprout and flourish. It takes more than one day for flowers to bloom or for tomatoes to turn ripe. Everything happens in due time

You’ll see your plants flourish in a while. And they will totally correspond to the seeds you’ve sowed. If you sow anger, envy, violence, then get ready to reap them.

It becomes obvious and simple once you get the idea of seeds and plants, doesn’t it?

The power of intention and thought can be seen easily if we turn to history. Those who had sowed seeds of destruction, were always at war struggling for power and wealth, making innocent people suffer. Chaos and wars were their harvest. There were also outstanding social figures, who gave people hope, faith and love, like Jesus and Buddha. You can find plenty of information on this topic if you search for it.

When your mind works correctly, when the thoughts deposited in your mind are constructive and peaceful, then they will bring harmony, kindness and wisdom. If one plants melons, one gets melons.

Your thoughts brought you into your present conditions. Good news is that your today’s thoughts and decisions determine your future!

You control 100% of your thoughts and all your decision making. So if you want to make a change in your life and make your dreams come true, you must change the way you think today, starting right now.

It’s fantastic, isn’t it?

Let’s go down to the ponds, listen to the whispering of the waterfalls and enjoy the birds singing among the trees. You know, while pondering over the power of thoughts, I remembered the most important moments of my life. I used to judge people all the time. See the gardener cutting the bushes? Do you think he is happy? I think he is. Because he’s doing something he loves. He loves plants, likes taking care of them: cutting, watering, fertilizing. The gardener literally feels his plants taking care of them just like his own children.

Just look at him, look at all the beautiful trees and flowers surrounding him! He also deserves credit for their beauty as he has put his thoughts into them! Those were thoughts of love, care, kindness and happiness. And now these delightful flowers bring so much joy to us. This place is perfect, isn’t it?

Some people are happy and some are not, some love themselves, their businesses, their lives, and some don’t. I used to call those who didn’t enjoy themselves “loosers”, and there were also “the rich”, “the healthy”, “the sick” and so on. There were few people I approved of. Then I thought of the difference between the lives of all those people and my own life.

It took me a long time to realize that my whole life depended on my attitude towards it. All my experiences, events, conditions and acts are produced by my mind in reaction to my own thoughts.

Imagine that you have many friends, and you all enjoy riding bicycles and hanging out together. You all make fun of a boy next door, whose bike looks unhip. You keep picking on him because you think he’s not as cool as you are. But it’s only your point of view! Why would anyone decide he could judge a person just for being different? He is special in so many ways, just like you are! After all, your bikes can also seem unhip to someone else.

Our thoughts are what make us so special. Thoughts are transformed into decisions followed by actions. That’s the way it works. Each of us is one of a kind!

You are singularly responsible for your life, your health, your success at school and in future career, your relationship with family and friends, my dear. It all depends on you! I’m just trying to help you to find your way and your destiny, to discover your talents.

All your experiences and the conditions you are in, good and bad ones, have been produced by your own mind in reaction to your thoughts. You may say that not everything depends on you because you’ve got parents, society, religion, conditions of life you can’t change. But I don’t want you to feel a victim of any circumstances you can’t influence. Because your mind is so much more powerful than you know. I want you to focus on the power you hold.

If you dislike something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Your behavior is nothing but the cause and the consequence of your thoughts.

Remember, your thought is like a sunflower seed which becomes a flower bearing hundreds of seeds. One seed produces hundreds!

Your thoughts determine your life.

Starting today, ask yourself the following questions every evening. Write them down in your diary or notepad to have them at hand anytime:

What was my day like? Was there anything I could improve?

What thoughts of mine could cause this?

What can I do now to change the result I’m not happy with?

What is my life going to be like in 2,5,10,30,50 years?

Did I hurt anyone today? Did I make anyone happy?

Did I help anyone today?

What was my self-esteem like today?

Did I do anything good for myself today?

What makes me special?

Would I want to have a friend like myself?

Do I make decisions independently?

What thoughts have crossed my mind today?

Do I approve of myself?

Take your time to think over and write down the answers. Nothing compares to work on self-improvement. It’s so essential that you take charge of your thoughts!

Your thoughts and words possess great power. Mind what you think and say.

We do learn to write and speak correctly at school, it is a part of compulsory curriculum, but that’s not what I mean. Unfortunately, there’s no such class as “The Power of Thoughts and Words”. What could it be about? It could help you to master your mighty mind.