The Creative Power Of Thought

Eric Butterworth Speaks: Essays on Abundant Living #144

Delivered by Eric Butterworth on January 19, 1976

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Are you in trouble of any kind? Are you perhaps unhappy or discouraged? Maybe you are experiencing some physical problem, or perhaps you are in need of a job. You know, ever since Adam was expelled from the Garden of Eden, the human race has been struggling with problems of one kind or another...economic, political, ethical. Some of the most brilliant people the world has ever known have devoted their lives to finding remedies to the negative conditions that have handicapped mankind.

Remarkable indeed is the magnitude of the premise that all inharmony originates in the mind of the individual. Through our thinking ability we bring into the world or create our experiences for good or otherwise. Many believe that there might be some changes in our governmental and social systems before harmony and fellowship can be established. It may be that outer reforms are necessary, but where is the reform to begin? How is it to be accomplished? Real reform must start with the smallest social unit—the individual. So, if we would change the world, our own affairs, our health, our financial status, our relationships, we must begin to change within ourselves. The first change must be necessarily in the mind, in our thinking.

Now, there are two kinds of thinking—negative and positive. Negative thoughts bring undesirable situations and problems; positive thoughts eliminate undesirable conditions and establish peace, health, harmony, happiness, and prosperity. So, if we don’t like the present condition of our lives and affairs, then we need to get busy changing our thoughts from negative to positive. Negative thoughts are destroyers; positive thoughts are builders of peace and happiness and prosperity. Think, talk, and expect happiness, and you will have it; think, talk, and expect unhappiness and you will have it. The law works both ways—the universal law by which negative thought produces positive results. What you think, you create. This is the law of infinite mind, and it never changes. It is inexorable.

Positive, constructive thinking can be maintained only by discipline, by watchfulness through which the negative thought is discarded and replaced with a positive one. Through the disciplined practice of watchfulness our thinking habits can be changed, and ultimately our bodies can be renewed and our minds recharged by right thinking. By persistent practice we can gradually stop thinking and speaking negative words such as “I can’t,” and begin to chose to speak positive words such as “I can,” or “I will!” Now, this is not easy; it takes a bit of effort. When you roll out of bed in the morning, regardless of appearances instead of saying, “I don’t fee] well this morning,” why not say, “I am feeling fine!”

Now, we may think that we have no power over the conditions that fill our lives, the thoughts that fill our minds, but nothing is more false than this. We have powei over all the conditions of our lives, and we may exercise this power according to our desire, our purpose, our integrity, and our perseverance. Now, the sorry fact is that so often we don’t want to give up our errant thoughts. It is difficult to give up grudges; they become a part of us that we like to dramatize. We want our suffering to seem worse than the other fellow’s; we want people to know how unjustly we have been treated, how terrible our physical condition is—this is all very human. There is a human desire for sympathy. If other persons won’t feel sorry for us, then we make up for it by feeling sorry for ourselves.

Perhaps, you are occasionally a moody person. Some people boost about being moody. There is nothing to brag about. As a matter of fact, if we permit moods to control us, they do control us. We then become weak in so many ways; we are not exercising control that is ours, that is our responsibility. Every thinking person in the world has the power within himself to control his moods. It takes discipline, but it can be done. How common it is to hear someone say, “Well, I’ve had the blues all day.” Or, “Oh dear, I lay awake till midnight last night just worrying.” And it probably doesn’t enter this person’s mind that he has the power to control his thoughts, and the energy to live a happier life.

Thought controls the world, and it controls your world. Within us resides the power to control our thoughts, to rule our destinies, to form our environment, to change our personalities, to heal inharmonies and diseases. One of the greatest mistakes we can make is to look to circumstances for happiness. If we depend on our surroundings for joy in our life, we live in a constant state of uncertainty and fear. Uncertainty because circumstances are forever changing; fear because our happiness is like the toy baloon the child clutches by a string who wonders when a puff of adverse wind will blow it to somebody else, or that it will burst into nothingness before his very eyes. Having no inner resources, he lives desolate.

There is something within every person that determines moods. In a sense we are kind of like human radios, and we tune in to whatever we wish, to whatever wave of thought we desire, simply by turning the dial of purpose. For instance, we may grieve that the cumulative sorrows of the world are ready to bear down our spirit, to carry us away on the heavy current of despair. When we are grieving, permitting ourselves the indulgence of feeling blue about something, it seems that the whole world is wrong, that there isn’t a bright spot in it. Then, when we begin to think upwards, to think happier thoughts, everything in the world takes a turn for the better. We mentally make excuses for the hurt or slight that some loved one gives us. We think of one more place to go to look for a job. We figure on something else we can do to make our home life happier. We have another idea for bringing about the healing that we long for and doubted could be ours.

If you want a new life, a different world, then you must begin to think with a purpose along this line, and tune into the thought waves that respond to the things that you really want to experience. Of course, you must have an attitude of expectation. You must look to new interests in life; you must refuse to be discouraged if whatever you wish doesn’t come in exactly the way that you thought or in the specified time that you have set. As a matter of fact, it is important not to be so narrow as to determine that your good can come in only one way or through one channel. Little do we know or imagine what method of manifestation our best good takes. It is a wise, creative process that withholds from us actual knowledge of the manifestation of the future.

Don’t be discouraged then if your attempt to change your thoughts doesn’t bring about a desired change at once; don’t give up. Change in you, or in your environment and affairs, begins immediately after you turn your thoughts towards what you desire. Bear in mind that there is no problem so mountainous that it can’t be solved; there is no trouble that cannot be replaced by happiness; no unhappy personal relationship that cannot be made harmonious; no illness that cannot be replaced by vibrant health; no need for supply or income so desperate that it cannot be made available. Though we may not know the answer to a problem that has a seemingly impossible solution, we can believe that there is a way.

It will work with the law of being, with the law of creation, with the law of love, with faith and understanding. If we discipline ourselves to keep our thoughts positive and constructive, then there is no such thing as an impossibility as far as we are concerned. Positive thinking makes for creative living.