THE LIFE WE LEAD is made up of images. These images may be physical images we see with our eyes or mental images we create in our minds. These mental images can also be called mental pictures. Visualization is basically directing the creation of mental images in the mind.

A thought is a mental image. Everything created began as a thought. An idea is a thought image that you find useful. Each person has many thoughts each day. Those thoughts that seem useful enough to get one's attention are useful ideas.

The world is filled with ideas, from the clothes you wear to the house where you live. Someone had the thought of creating a building or owning a clothing factory. Even if your clothes are homemade, someone still had the idea of making them. Someone designed, planned and constructed the house you live in and this requires thoughts, ideas and mental images.

I am going to present you with an idea that is universal. That idea is: Thought is Cause. What does this statement, "thought is cause," mean or indicate? Thought is cause means that everything begins with a thought. Therefore, thought is the point of power. Thought is the point of control.

In order to bring about or manifest a thought in your life you must learn to mentally picture, image, or imagine what you desire to create in your life. A thought or idea is the beginning of any creation. Successful people always have an image or idea that they hold in mind constantly. This image or thought revolves around the success they desire to create or manifest in their life.

Thought is the beginning of all physical effects we experience in our life.

Success includes whatever you have imaged and then achieved that was good and productive. Success could be measured according to physical wealth accumulated. It could be measured according to a loving family and friends. It could be measured according to degrees of enlightenment. In other words, success can be measured in many different ways.

I find the following question to be of value in assessing the success of any endeavor. Does it benefit the Self and other people? True and great success always involves helping other people.

Thought is the beginning of all the physical effects we experience in our lives. It has been said that nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

An example of an idea whose time had come was the founding of the United States of America. At the time the idea of a country governing itself through elected rulers and without a king was radical. Over 200 years later that idea has been accepted and practiced by many countries around the world.

One time I had a student ask me, "What is the most powerful force in the universe?" To which I replied, "Thought is the most powerful force in the universe." Then the student said, "I think love is the most powerful thing in the universe." My response was, "Love is a thought." Love is a thought of connectedness in LIGHT.

You see, the essence of our being is LIGHT. We are individualized units of LIGHT known as I AM or, plural, I AMs.

Therefore, our tool for creating is LIGHT. How do we form, shape and manifest LIGHT into our lives in the manner desired? The answer is thought. Thought is our vehicle for using LIGHT for the fulfillment of desires and needs. The key to using thought and therefore LIGHT, is to have a disciplined and focused mind that consistently and repeatedly images the thoughtform one desires to create in the life.

Goals are mental images or directed thoughts of what one wants to create outwardly in the life. Goals relate to physical things, objects, and situations in one's life. One can have a goal of having more money. One can have a goal to complete some project.

Everyone needs goals for goals give direction to the mind. What is the mind? The mind is the vehicle of Self or I AM. The Self uses the vehicle of the mind in order to progress in awareness and understanding.

The beginning of all creation is LIGHT. There are two main factors that come from LIGHT. These two factors are Truth and Love.

Truth is the Aggressive Principle of LIGHT.
Love is the Receptive Principle of LIGHT.

In order to progress in awareness one must learn to wield both of these.

What is an atom made of? We are told that an atom is made of protons, neutrons and electrons. Yet protons, neutrons and electrons are tiny compared to the space between the nucleus of an atom and the distance to its orbiting electrons. So an atom is mostly space. This space in the atom is not empty space for it is filled with energy.

We determine how this space in atoms is to be used by our thoughts. This is one of the lessons of Quantum mechanics. The experimenter affects the experiments with his or her thoughts.

You have gotten to the place, situations, and circumstances you are now living in as a result of your thoughts.

Decisions are based on thoughts. People make decisions based upon thoughts they hold in their mind. Your decisions which are based upon your thoughts brought you to this place and circumstance in your life. Therefore the person that chooses the thoughts wisely and directs the mind with goals is much more likely to create success in the life.

Therefore, write down on paper your most important goals you would like to achieve. Visualize or image these goals until they have been achieved.

Remember, a goal gives direction to the mind and the mind is very powerful. In fact,

The mind is the tool or vehicle for knowing the Self.
The mind is your vehicle for creating your life.

Each person has a mind. Yet some people use their minds better than other people. Choose any measure of success and you will find that those people that succeed use their minds more effectively than those that fail.

There are varying degrees of using the mind just as there are varying degrees of success and failure. Until the mind is focused in a certain direction the attention and efforts of the individual will be scattered.

The basis of all thought is mental or mind images. For example, before you say the word "tree," you must first think of the picture of a tree. Successful people understand that their thoughts are powerful and that thoughts are things. It is through our thoughts that we build up our world.

Directing our thoughts with goals gives each person a greater opportunity to create the life that he or she finds fulfilling. So therefore it is important to direct the mind every day upon certain predetermined lines of thought called goals.

Imagination is used to create goals. A goal by its very nature is something you have yet to achieve. Therefore, a goal is something of the future.

Memory uses images of the past.
Attention receives images in the present.
Imagination creates images for the future.

Goals are mainly physical. So when you think of a goal, you are thinking of something you want to achieve in the future. How soon will this goal of the future arrive? It depends in large part on the precision and strength of your mental image.

REFINING YOUR GOALS

When going from the first floor to the second floor of a house a person goes up stair steps. Each step up gets the individual closer to the goal of being on the second floor.

In a similar manner often we have smaller goals that are steps on the way to great or larger goals. With each step up the ladder or stairs it is important to learn the lessons the present situation offers. The lesson may be confidence. The lesson may be self value. The lesson may be determination, discipline, love, communication, friendship, or other qualities that make for a better person.

In other words, because you want to achieve greater things then you must change, adapt, adjust and transform your consciousness. ALL great achievements began as a thought. Therefore you need to do whatever is needed in order to learn to think greater thoughts and believe in the possibility of you achieving them.

The truth will set you free of limitations.

Therefore a very important and powerful key in manifesting goals is to be willing to receive new or greater truth into the Self. In other words, you need to learn the lesson that life is offering.

History is full of examples of people who at first did not succeed yet through perseverance and learning were able to achieve their greatest imaginings.

When things are not working out for you, change yourself. In order to change one must be willing to receive a greater truth into the Self. We learn through our five senses of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. Therefore it is very important to remain open to the learning in one's experiences. If you are not achieving your goals as fast as you desire then it is time to look at yourself and life from a different perspective. This requires receiving a greater truth into yourself.

Some people are afraid to change because they think that this will mean they were wrong up to the present time. Such a person thinks, "If I admit I was wrong up 'til now then my life must have little meaning." This is wrong thinking.

To learn in the present does not negate the past. Instead, learning in the present indicates one has added to his or her ability to succeed in the present and in the future.

• Desires are what you want to receive.
• Goals are what you want to achieve.
• Desires have the power to draw to you what is desired.
• Goals aid you to move toward your imaged objective.
• Both function from a mental image.

Once a person tastes success then the appetite is whetted for more success. Success breeds success because success is an attitude. The attitude that leads to success is a clearly imaged goal that he frequently holds in the mind's eye until it is achieved.

An attitude is a thought or group of thoughts held in the mind and practiced until it becomes second nature.

An attitude is a repeated collection of thoughts.

Thoughts can be either productive or unproductive. So if one is going to practice a thought it is reasonable to focus on thoughts that are productive-thoughts that when created or manifested will bring permanent and lasting fulfillment.

Everyone is dependent upon the environment to receive new thoughts and new ideas about life. A child learns and grows by receiving knowledge, ideas and experience into the Self. Childhood is a time of rapid learning. Therefore, remember to stay open to learning at all times.

Keep an open mind.

When creating a goal the mind moves aggressively to form an image of what one intends to create or do.

When one stills the mind and has an open mind one can receive the learning, knowledge, information and experience one needs in order to be capable of receiving the goal.

To have or believe in a new and greater goal or your next step requires greater thinking. It requires a belief in the possibility that you can be greater.

ALL minds think in pictures. Therefore, mental images or pictures are not only the key but also the power of using the mind. Mind is the vehicle the Self uses to create. Therefore, use the mind to create success. Mind is the vehicle the Self uses to create.

To set a goal or create a goal and to be committed to achieving that goal can be perceived as a risk. After all, aren't you comfortable being the way you are now? You do seem to be able to survive with your life as it is now. However, is that all you want out of life? Do you want more than survival? More than the fight or flight of an animal? Of course you do. So therefore, become a risk taker.

The greatest risk is to do nothing!

The challenge to any person who wants to succeed in life is to continually refine, upgrade and improve one's thoughts. Thought is cause. Therefore, we create our world around us based upon our thoughts.

Continually refine, upgrade and improve your thoughts.

When shooting arrows with a bow, always keep your attention on the target. The target is your goal. The goal is to shoot the arrow so that the arrow hits the target in the very center.

So it is with any goal in life. Keep your attention on the goal. Then, like the arrow, move or fly straight to the goal. Use whatever tool is needed to imagine the goal clearly and to hold it in mind.

Repeat the goal out loud every day.

Write the goal on paper and read it every day.

Share your goal with others that will be receptive to it.

In short, continually upgrade and improve the image of the goal.

It has been said, "What the mind can conceive, it can achieve."

This is true because all creations begin as a thought.

Remember, the first two letters of the word GOAL spell GO.

The second two letters are AL. Who is AL? AL is you! AL is the creator within you. AL is your ability to learn and grow as you GO or move toward your imaged mental construct.

If you will think about it, consider that all your education up to the present time has occurred through the medium of pictures. To see a person or object through sight is to view a 2 dimensional or 3 dimensional image or picture.

Sounds received through the sense of hearing give us a type or kind of image or impression as does touch, smell, and taste.

A mental image or picture then is the way experiences
structure themselves as they are received into one's mind.

ALL the ancient languages were written in pictures by people who understood the picture language. The picture written languages are called hieroglyphs, or petroglyphs or pictoglyphs. Before the invention or coming of the alphabet, written languages were inscribed by using groups of pictures. Each picture had a specific meaning. Even to this day the Chinese do not use an alphabet and instead have many symbols that were originally pictures. Each picture represents an idea or word.

Your night dreams come in the form of pictures. Your day dreams come in the form of pictures.

Since the mind is alway working in pictures it makes sense that we would use the mind most effectively by choosing and directing these pictures or images of the mind.

The truth is people create mental images every day. So choose the mental images you want to achieve. This is called setting a goal or creating a goal.

The only way you will achieve is to have a mental image or goal of what you want to achieve.

Before you entered this lifetime you chose a mental image
of your upcoming life, and you have attempted to fulfill this ever since.

So, you see, we always have a choice as to the thoughts we think.

If you want to change the world then you must change yourself. To change yourself means to permanently alter the way you think by thinking different thoughts that are more in alignment with Universal Law and Universal Truth.

Once you raise your level of awareness you will look back upon the past and wonder, "How could I have ever thought like that?" You may think "There sure were a lot of things that I didn't see and perceive then that I do now," or "I wish I had known then what I know now."

The point is, "You can raise your level of awareness by stilling your mind."

By the still mind is the real self known.

The one who would be free must create greater thought in the present.

A goal gives the mind direction. It focuses the mind on what you want to do in order to achieve. A goal is usually something physical that you want to achieve.

For example, you may have a goal to drive a car or chop wood or to sweep the floor. Therefore, this mental image or goal is pictured or visualized in the mind or the mind's eye. The most efficient way to use the mind is to direct it. A goal clearly imaged gives direction to the mind.

A strong purpose helps to keep a goal from getting too fixed and inflexible. A purpose or personal benefit allows the goal to evolve as we learn, grow and evolve.

A mental picture is a thought.
Words are a physical manifestation of a thought,
a type of activity.

The difference between goals and desires is that
a goal provides a mental image for the individual to move towards...

A desire provides a mental image
for the subconscious mind to fulfill.

A tool that aids in manifesting desires is the ten most wanted list. The word manifest means to bring a thought into physical existence.

A ten most wanted list is a way of ordering one's thoughts using proper perspective. This is accomplished by placing one's most wanted, most important or greatest desire at the top of the list. In the number two spot goes one's second most important desire. Number three on your ten most wanted list is your third greatest desire. Continue this process until ten items are placed on the ten most wanted list. For example, a new car may be number one on the ten most wanted list. A new job may be number two. A new pair of shoes may be number three and so on. Read the ten most wanted list each day in order to prioritize your thoughts.

Reading the ten most wanted list each day has a dual function. The first is to aid the conscious mind to focus in on what is important in the life. In this way the energies of the day are better spent by focusing on what is important in the life.

The second function of the ten most wanted list is that it enables one's conscious mind to give clear images to one's subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is very powerful and will go to work or move to fulfill the desire images of the conscious mind. So by creating a ten most wanted list and reading it every day one engages the conscious and subconscious minds in harmony. This is very powerful. In addition, if one's subconscious mind is unable to fulfill the conscious mind's clearly imaged desire then the subconscious mind will reach out to other subconscious minds to connect with them in the fulfillment of one's desires.

For example, that seemingly chance meeting with a person that introduces you to another person that provides you with the job or resources you need is not an accident at all. That experience was provided by subconscious mind. This is why desires are something you receive whereas goals are something you achieve.

The world is full of sensory stimulus. Yet sensory stimulus alone will never give success. Physical experience alone will never give enlightenment. It is what you do with the physical experience that determines your rate of soul growth and spiritual development.

Sensory experience is to be used to glean universal truth, the essence of the soul learning in each experience.

Most everyone loves sensory experiences such as tasty food, beautiful scenery, wonderful smells, etc.

Stimulus leads to desires and the most basic desires are physical. It is each person's duty to evolve physical desires to mental desires. Mental desires are of the mind. The mind is our vehicle for knowing the Self. Therefore, it is important that we learn to think with and use the mind.

When a person lives for sensory stimulus then that person's consciousness resides in the physical brain. Such a person does not have the opportunity or availability of the use of the mind. The mind is much more powerful and expansive than the brain. Yet the brain must be used correctly in order to then use the mind to build permanent understandings of Self and Creation.

The desires that come from physical stimulus are temporary. So the solution is to gain desires in a different way. The solution, the way out of this dilemma, is to create and fulfill desires in a different more evolved and uplifting way. This more evolved, uplifting and different way is called purpose.

WHAT IS PURPOSE?

Purpose is personal benefit. Purpose can be and usually is self created. Purpose aligns with goals because purpose provides the motivation to pursue a goal.

Think about it. When does a goal become really attractive to you? A goal becomes attractive or desirable when there is a benefit to you, the goal creator. Purpose provides an inner source of desire and an inner source of motivation because purpose is personal benefit.

Since you created the purpose for a goal, that purpose and that motivation and that desire can last as long as you choose to maintain or have that purpose. Outer stimulus is always temporary. In contrast, the inner motivation to achieve that comes from purpose can be lasting and permanent.

You the individual choose the thoughts that are lasting and eternal or temporary and changing. That is a great key of the deepening, enlightened life. By choosing thoughts that are permanent and lasting you connect with Universal Truth. For anything to be lasting and eternal it must connect with Universal Truth.

Therefore, when you create a purpose you can cause lasting desire for motivation.

Examine your thoughts. Do you want to wait for a stimulus to come to you in order to create a desire? Do you want to wait on the environment to provide this or would you rather be able and capable of creating purposeful motivation to achieve desires every day?

Sometimes companies bring in a paid motivational speaker. That speaker gets all the employees excited. From this excitement the employees produce to greater degrees. Yet after a few weeks or a few months this excitement wears off because the employees have not developed a greater purpose.

So purpose, which is personal benefit, needs to be interiorized.

As the individual evolves so does one's purpose evolve. This evolving purpose involves and includes more and more people. The greatest purpose or personal benefit lies in aiding other people in their soul growth because connectedness is the true nature of reality. Therefore, as you aid others to abundance you are also aided to abundance.

As one expands the consciousness to include others, the benefit returned to the self becomes greater and greater.

The more you practice purpose the more your purpose continues to elevate. The solution is to always strive to elevate your thoughts. Mental discipline is required in order to continually upgrade one's purpose and the ability to give and receive.

It requires discipline to think a different thought. To choose a different thought is to use your mind. To think the same thought day after day is to be in the brain. A person can either choose thought with the mind or repeat memory thoughts from the brain.

Ideals concern all the productive, valuable and good things one can become. Ideals involve achieving more of your full potential.

Examples of ideals are to become full of love, filled with truth, knowing, wisdom or compassion.

The greatest ideal is enlightenment. At the essence and core of our being is LIGHT. At the essence of every atom in our physical body is LIGHT. Each individual is an I AM, an individualized unit of LIGHT. It is each soul's duty, each person's duty to know self as a creator. A creator is made up of the LIGHT of awareness and uses LIGHT to create.

Mind is the vehicle I AM uses in order to create. Mind is the vehicle I AM uses to learn to be a creator. And mind is made up of LIGHT also. Each level and each division of mind uses LIGHT at varying rates of vibration.

It is good and productive to give people hope and inspire them to be more and be greater than they are already.

It is productive for a teacher to say to a student, "I can see or perceive you becoming great" or "I can perceive you becoming a spiritual teacher" or "I can see what you have to offer has lasting value." A teacher may say to the student, "I can see you becoming a world teacher or I believe you can become a great healer."

There are many wonderful thoughts and ideas that a teacher can say to a student that stimulate a huge belief that he or she can become much greater and achieve great and wonderful needs for self and humanity.

It has been said that there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. This is a very true statement because thought is cause. In other words everything begins with a thought.

Love fills the universe and is at its essence. Love together with truth give each person the possibility and probability of evolving to know self and be enlightened. In order to use goals and ideals most effectively one must learn to create clear and precise mental images. Each success in life was preceded by a mental image, a thought that was mentally pictured over and over again in the mind's eye.

In order to create greater thoughts there must be the acceptance that the present life one is experiencing is not satisfying or not fully satisfying. Then because of one's self value and worth, a greater or improved image of self and the life can be created.

The way out of an unfulfilling life is to first imagine something greater. Goals and ideals are those imaged thoughts that we create a greater life around.

In order to progress to a better life each individual needs to receive a higher truth.

You have to and need to receive a higher truth through the five senses of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. This is the way learning is accomplished in a physical body and in the brain. This is the way we build permanent understandings of self in physical life.

As the higher truth is received it needs to be integrated into one's thinking and one's consciousness.

Ask yourself the following questions:

"How will my thoughts improve?"

"What limiting thoughts am I going to replace with more expansive thoughts?"

Another question to ask yourself is, "What false (or partially wrong) thoughts will I replace with right and productive thinking?"

Practicing mental discipline, such as concentration and meditation, aids and enables one to more easily identify one's thought. From these practices one can come to have 10 times more awareness in identifying one's thoughts.

How can you change your thoughts if you are not even aware of your thoughts? This is why so many people have difficulty changing. It is a truth that, "as you think so you become." Therefore, in order to become greater each person must think greater thoughts. In order to facilitate the process of thinking greater thoughts it certainly helps to be aware of one's thoughts.

If the thoughts in one's mind are racing then one can never hope to be fully aware of the thoughts. When the thoughts and the mind race, it is like a cart leading the horse or a cat chasing its tail. In both cases things are turned backwards. The Real Self, that is you, is supposed to lead the mind and direct the thoughts.

The challenge is to continually refine and improve one's thoughts. The need for the conscious mind is to be disciplined. Discipline of the conscious mind is required in order for Self to be capable of continually refining the thoughts. Stated another way, you have to be aware of your thoughts before you can consciously refine your thoughts.

Most people think 80 to 90% the same thoughts every day. This leaves 10 to 20% of the thoughts that go beyond memory and that can be employed with the imagination to improve one's mind and consciousness.

A secret key of the mind is
to learn to create new and greater thoughts each day
and to come to rely less and less on old memory thoughts every day.

This is just the opposite of what most people do. Most people when they are young start out thinking many new thoughts. As people age they end up thinking more and more repeated memory thoughts. Memory thoughts are images of the past, and people cannot learn and grow in the past. When one tries to live in the past one gets old and ages.

Therefore, it is wise to look upon each day as a new learning, a new experience, a new day to learn, change and grow.

New mental images in the conscious mind lead to new and different emotions that then lead to new activity, action or effort. Emotions connect thought pictures or images to activity. The written and spoken word is a kind of activity. So choosing new, productive, and creative thoughts leads to a greater and more open use of the emotions. This translates into more free-flowing writing and speaking abilities.

People that have writer's block find that when they change their thoughts in a new or different way, new ideas and words flow out of them and onto paper. They become better writers, better public speakers and more effective communicators. Their mental thoughts flow through the emotions and into the physical life.

Emotions are the glue that bind the conscious outer mind with the subconscious or inner mind. Emotions connect thought pictures with words.

A mind image or picture is mental.
A spoken word is a physical abstraction.
A written word is a physical abstraction.

A still mind aligns all three, of mental, emotional and physical.

There is a greater Self or a Higher Self that one can serve. By accepting the truth that you are more than a physical body there can begin to be the dawning of awareness of what you really are.

What is your ideal of yourself? Is the ideal of yourself the same as what is in your memory of yourself 10 years ago or is your ideal of yourself something that you are becoming?

Each person is in the process of becoming a greater individual. We can quicken this process of reaching our full potential or we can try to remain the same. The longer one refuses to learn the universal lessons of life the more painful the results of those choices become.

Discipline of the mind is necessary to know one's purpose in life. Even if someone were to tell you your purpose in life you still would not know your purpose in life. You might at that point believe you know your purpose in life or have information about your purpose in life. It would still be up to you, as an individual, to come to know your purpose in life by practicing and applying the information given.

Some people achieve their purpose by following their dream. I'm not referring here to a night dream. I am indicating following one's inner urge, the small inner voice one hears in the quiet times.

Whatever creates movement toward receiving the inner urge and acting upon the inner urge fulfills the purpose of life.

Thoughts to remember:
Purpose is a natural extension of the mind to explore meaning.
Thought is the factor for anything coming into being.

What to do:
Observe and be aware of your thoughts.

© Daniel R. Condron, 2009

Stay with us as Daniel walks us through all
"28 Powerful New Keys For Discovering and Fulfilling
Your Purpose In Life."

Next Month:
Keys to Discover One's Purpose in Life

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Throughout this lifetime, Daniel R. Condron has strived to understand the secrets of life and to explain them in a form that is understandable to all. He first accomplished this as a young boy when he gained a connectedness with nature being in the woods and pastures while growing up on the family farm in northwest Missouri. He has devoted his life to understanding what is permanent, lasting, knowing the true reality, and the purpose of life. This he teaches to others through the understanding of the still mind. He resides with his wife Barbara and son Hezekiah on the campus of the College of Metaphysics.