Kind
Formula
Interpretive layers
Teaching pattern
Effort defeats itself: under what psychologists call the law of reverse effort, forcing attention brings the opposite result, so the feeling of the wish fulfilled is assumed with a minimum of effort and attention held without force in the drowsy state; one does not will oneself to be it, one imagines that one is it.
Collections
Lectures
Bible wordings
Zechariah 4:6 | Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts
Own wordings
a law known to psychologists today as the law of reverse effort
When you assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled it is with a minimum of effort
Do not think for a moment that it is will power that does it
you do not will yourself to be it, you imagine that you are it
The idea must be maintained in the mind without any sensible effort on your part
I let it come up, I do not make it come up
You need not struggle for the realization of your desire
attention minus effort is indispensable to changing the future
The idea must be maintained in the field of presentation without any sensible effort on our part
You cannot force an idea into embodiment, you simply appropriate it
Attention is tension toward an end, and relaxation is just the opposite
Prayer is a surrender. It means abandoning oneself to the feeling of the wish fulfilled
The sovereign rule is to make no effort
Creativeness is not an act of will, but a deeper receptiveness – a keener susceptibility
What we must work for is not the development of the will, but the education of the imagination and the steadying of attention
Prayer is, above all things, easy. Its greatest enemy is effort
The mighty surrenders itself fully only to that which is most gentle
Life is not a struggle but a surrender. Our prayers are answered by the powers we invoke, not by those we exert
We often are deprived of our high goal by our effort to possess it
when will and imagination are in conflict, imagination invariably wins