Passport to Success

Mar 28
21:00

2004

Dr. P.C.  Simon

Dr. P.C. Simon

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You may publish this article or use it in any way you find reasonable provided the resource box is unedited and the author is duly credited. The author's website is http://www.interchange.ubc.ca/psimon/book2.htm The author will appreciate any information as to when and where the article is used.

Resource Box: The Purpose of Creation by Dr. P.C. Simon,Passport to Success Articles Copyright 2003. Also by Dr. P.C. Simon, The Missing Piece to Paradise, an inspiring, informative, and life-changing book. More articles by Dr. Simon can be seen at http://www.interchange.ubc.ca/psimon/book2.htm

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Passport to Success

by

Dr. P.C. Simon

copyright 2003, word count: 1900

Success is the prosperous termination of any enterprise. Therefore, success can only be appraised at the end, not at the beginning. However, to reach the end, one has to start. Many people are unable to start an enterprise because of fear, fear that they will fail, fear that they do not have the stamina, fear that they do not have the resources, the education, the finance, the right age, etc. Therefore, the first thing they have to do is to overcome the fear.

How do we overcome fear?

When I was training to take a private pilot license, the first time my trainer stalled the engine, the plane dropped a few hundred feet and I was horror stricken. I wanted to quit. But my trainer encouraged me and convinced me that after a few more times I would overcome the fear of stalling and I did. I had to have the confidence and with that confidence I had to go through the experience. This is what we all have to do. Have confidence in your potential and go through the experience.

Establish a precise goal. It should remain unchanging until it is reached. The goal should be written down and looked at frequently to reinforce it in our minds.

What do you have to do to reach your goal? Plan out in detail from the very beginning. Set goals for each day, each week, each month. At the end of each period, check to see that the goal set for that period has been reached. If the goal has not been reached, don't give up. Reset the goal and try to complete it during the next interval.

Your plan must be followed passionately. You must have a burning desire to follow the plan and to reach your goal.

Napoleon Hill, in his book Think and Grow Rich, writes "to achieve success, one should have:

a. Faith. A persistent faith is the head chemist of the mind. Faith, love and sex are the most powerful of all major positive emotions. when faith is blended with emotional thought and word, it will materialize. Faith is a state of mind which may be created by affirmations. Repetition of affirmation is one of the ways to order the subconscious to act. The subconscious is that part of the universal mind which is responsible for materialization of thought.

"Life's battle don't always go to the stronger or faster man,

But soon or late, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can."

b. Persistence. There is no better example than Thomas Edison. During his life, he patented 1093 inventions. Edison is said to have tested 4000 fibers before he found that white cotton thread rolled in lampblack (soot) could be used as a filament for the electric light.

Once, Edison told a co-worker who was disappointed in a series of experimental failures, "Schultz, we haven't failed. We know 1000 things that won't work so we are much closer of finding what will."

At the age of 80, he decided to find a native source of rubber. He met with failure after failure. After testing and classifying 17,000 varieties of plants, he succeeded in devising a method to extract latex. His persistence paid off. Success is incumbent on one's motivational ability.

No man can succeed in any enterprise all by himself. All successful people were able to gather others around them and motivate them. To succeed in motivating others, we can take a few words of advice from Dale Carnegie. In his book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, he gives some important points such as: -

1. Get interested in other people rather than trying to get other people interested in you.

2. Learn to remember names.

3. Listen without saying a word.

4. Ask questions or talk about the topics he/she is interested in.

5. Make him/her feel important.

6. Don't criticize.

7. Frame your questions in such a way as to get "yes" as an answer.

8. Let him think that the idea is his.

9. Talk about your own mistake before correcting the other person.

10. Ask Questions instead of giving orders.

Charles, son of Thomas Edison, said of his father, "Father could and often did give orders, but he preferred to inspire people so that they may suggest to him what he wanted them to do in the first place. This was one of the secrets of his success."

11. Let the other man save his face.

12. Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.

Successful people can be divided into two groups.

1. Those who underestimated their successful career and thought they had done very little worthwhile in life.

2. Those who recognized they had achieved a lot.

Leonardo da Vinci, a man two centuries ahead of his time, the great architect of many inventions, the creator of the Mona Lisa, just before his death at the age of 67 went about scribbling on pieces of paper, "Tell me if anything ever was done."

Tycho Brahe, the great Danish Astronomer who measured so accurately the motions of the planets as no one ever had done before, said at his death bed, "Tell me what have I achieved."

Why did they lament their lack of accomplishment? Not because of the lack of awareness of their own achievement but because of the awareness of the immensity of projects yet to be carried out.

There are others who were confident about having accomplished their assignment.

St.Paul, in his second Epistle to Timothy, says, "I have run my race. I have finished my course and there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness."

What is the secret of this satisfaction and how did they reach the stage of satisfaction? I have looked through the life stories of many great men and women. I feel confident that I found the secret. I applied that in my life many times and it worked. I shall share that secret with you. The secret is listening, listening to your inner voice. Sit in silence and listen to the inner voice. We can call it communion, meditation, introspection or cogitation.

There are many systems to develop this communion. The easiest is what Myrtle Filmore did. In her private room, she placed two chairs. She sat on one and invited Jesus to come and sit on the other. In silence, she asked questions and in silence she received the answers.

Edison used to sit with marbles in his hand on a chair placed on a metal try. During deep thinking, he used to enter a hypnagogic state. Just at the point of entering into sleep, he would get solutions for his problems; the marbles would slip out from his hand, drop onto the metal tray and wake him up. If he did not wake up, the solutions would fade away as dreams.

The same thing happened to Newton. He wrote that he got all his ideas during "a profound shrinking from the world ... a rapt, consecrated, solitary pursuing his studies by intense introspection." He himself wondered how he happened to get all these ideas.

Joan of Arc testified to hearing voices. Swedenborg "discoursed with the spirits even while he was in company of men. To him, they were as real as men of flesh and blood. Their voices were no different from those of his friends yet none of his fiends heard them and he wondered why."

Socrates talked about a constantly present inner voice. When he was condemned to die, he said, "What happened to me is good. If it were otherwise, the oracle would have opposed me ... Hitherto the familiar oracle within me has constantly been in the habit of opposing me if I was going to make a slip or error about anything. The oracle made no sign of opposition, either as I was leaving my house... or when I was going up to this court.

Some people receive their answers through the Bible as St. Augustine did. He heard a voice say, "Take up and read." He opened the Bible which he carried in his pocket and saw the words, "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in lechery and wantonness... but in the Lord is thy trust." This was quite apt to his situation and he took it as God's message to him.

When my mother in Travancore went into a forest and sat in a cave to find strength to overcome the effects of witchcraft her in-laws had set upon her, she opened the Bible and her eyes fell upon the words, "God...hath sent his angel and delivered his servants that trusted in him... that they might not serve nor worship any god except their own God." This was a very apt message, for she was fighting witchcraft with witchcraft. She realized that she was worshipping other gods. This made a drastic change in her. Thereafter, witchcraft had no effect on her. She escaped many attempts on her life. She received power to heal the sick and did set free a lunatic who was in chains for nearly forty years. and she did cast out devils from the possessed.

For me the voice is not really a voice. It is an idea coming into my awareness. Sometimes the ideas I received were not to my liking. Sometimes, no ideas came. Bishop George Berkeley, after whom Berkeley in California is named, said, "The only thing which we ever experience are perceptions, thoughts, and feelings within our own minds."

However, not always do we find the answers we are seeking. Newton struggled lifelong but never did find solutions to problems such as transmutation of metals, finding the Philosopher's stone or discovering the secret of the universe from the Book of Revelations.

The answer to St. Paul, the apostle, for his prayer to remove the thorn in his flesh ( a stomach ailment) was "My grace is sufficient for thee." It is not what we ask, but what is good for us that is granted.

So, sometimes we have to accept these situations as they are. Though they may appear to be calamities at the moment, they turn out to be blessings after a few short years. This is what happened to me when my house burned down. I thought it was a great calamity. The house was underinsured. I could not understand why such a thing should happen to me. But I knew that nothing bad would happen to me. Therefore, it must be for my good and I said so openly. I went through the struggle of building a house, fighting city hall at every stage, and, when it was completed, I called the underwriter to come and insure my new house. He told me then, "Dr. Simon, when I came here to see the burned down house, I thought it was a great calamity. but now, I can see that it was a blessing as you said then. You have three beautiful apartments where one old house existed.

Things do not happen without hard work and persistence. The harder you work the luckier you get. So, follow the inner urging you receive at moments of introspection, persist to follow through, and work hard. This is your passport to success.

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