|
Self-Development and the Way To Power
L. W. Rogers
Written in 1922. The
electronic version is courtesy of
Project Gutenberg
Page 1
Previous
Next
Now, there are three things that a person must possess
to be successful in
self-development. If he has not these three
qualifications he will make but little progress; but,
fortunately, any lacking quality can be evolved and if
one does not possess these three necessities his first
work is to create them. These three things are an
ardent desire, an iron will and an
alert intelligence.
Why are these three qualifications essential to success
and what purpose do they serve?
Desire is nature's
motor power – the propulsive force that pushes
everything forward in its evolution. It is desire that
stimulates to
action. Desire drives the animal into the activities
that evolve its physical body and sharpen its
intelligence. If it had no desire it would lie inert and
perish. But the desire for food, for drink, for
association with its kind, impel it to action, and the
result is the evolution of strength, skill and
intelligence in proportion to the intensity of its
desires. To gratify these desires it will accept battle
no matter how great may be the odds against it and will
unhesitatingly risk life itself in the combat. Desire
not only induces the activity that develops physical
strength and beauty, but also has its finer effects.
Hunger compels the animal not only to seek food, but to
pit its cunning against that of its prey. Driven forward
by desire it develops, among other qualities, strength,
courage, patience, endurance, intelligence.
Desire plays the same
role with man at his higher stage of evolution. It
stimulates him to action; and always as his activity
satisfies his original desire a new one replaces the old
and lures him on to renewed exertion. The average young
man beginning his business career, desires only a
comfortable cottage. But when that is attained he wants
a mansion. He soon tires of the mansion and wants a
palace. Then he wants several--at the seaside, in the
city, and on the mountains. At
first he is satisfied with a horse; then he demands an
automobile, and finally a steam yacht. He sets out as a
youth to earn a livelihood and welcomes a small salary.
But the desire for
money pushes him into business for himself and he
works tirelessly for a competence. He feels that a small
fortune should satisfy anybody but when he gets it he
wants to
be a millionaire. If he succeeds in that he then
desires to become a multi-millionaire.
Whether the desire is
for wealth, or for fame, or for power, the same result
follows--when the desire is satisfied a greater one
takes its place and spurs the ambitious one to still
further exertion. He grasps the prize he believes to
contain complete satisfaction only to discover that
while he was pursuing it desire had grown beyond it, and
so the goal he would attain is always far ahead of him.
Thus are we tricked and apparently mocked by nature
until we finally awake to the
fact that all the objects of desire--the fine raiment,
the jewels, the palaces, the wealth, the power, are but
vain and empty things; and that the real reward for all
our efforts to secure them is not these objects at all
_but the new powers we have evolved in getting
them;_powers that we did not before possess and which we
should not have evolved but for nature's great
propulsive force--desire. The man who accumulates a
fortune by many years of persistent effort in organizing
and developing a business enterprise, by careful
planning and deep thinking, may naturally enough look
upon the fortune he will possess for a few years before
it passes on to others, as his reward. But the truth is
that it is a very transient and perishable and worthless
thing compared to the new powers that were unconsciously
evolved in getting it--powers that will be retained by
the man and be brought into use in future incarnations.
Desire, then, plays a most important role in human
evolution. It awakens, stimulates, propels. What wind is
to the ship, what steam is to the locomotive, desire is
to the human being.
It has been written
in a great book, "Kill out desire," and elsewhere it is
written, "Resist not evil." We may find, in similar
exalted pronouncements, truths that are very useful to
disciples but which might be confusing and misleading to
the man of the world if he attempted to literally apply
them. Perhaps for the average mortal "kill out desire"
might be interpreted "transmute desire." Without desire
man would be in a deathlike and dangerous condition – a
condition in which further progress would be impossible.
But by transmuting the lower desires into the higher he
moves steadily forward and upward without losing the
motive power that urges him forever onward.
Page 1
Previous
Next
|
