(Excerpted from “Secrets to the _Law of Attraction_” and “The Complete Thomas Troward Pool”)
The fact that creation exists proves that the Universal Mind thinks differently, and we have only to look around to see that the right ideal is the exercise of creative power. Hence, so far from desire being a thing to be annihilated, it is the very root of each conceivable mode of Life. Without it Life could not be. Each form of expression implies the selection of all that goes to make up that form, and the passing-by of whatever is not required for that function; hence a desire for that which is elected in preference to what is laid aside. And this selective desire is none other than the universal _Law of Attraction_.
Whether this law acts as the chemical affinity of apparently unconscious atoms, or in the instinctive, if unreasoned, attractions of the vegetable and animal worlds, it is still the principle of selective affinity; and it continues to be the same when it passes on into the higher kingdoms which are ruled by reason and conscious function. The modes of activity in each of these kingdoms are dictated by the nature of the kingdom; but the activity itself always results from the preference of a certain subject for a certain object, to the exclusion of all others; and all action consists in the reciprocal movement of the two towards each other in obedience to the law of their affinity.
When this takes place in the kingdom of conscious individuality, the affinities exhibit themselves as mental action; but the principle of selection prevails without exception throughout the universe. In the conscious mind this attraction towards its affinity becomes desire; the desire to make some condition of things better than that now existing. Our want of information may cause us to make mistakes as to what this better thing really is, and so in seeking to carry out our desire we may give it a incorrect direction; but the fault is not in the desire itself, but in our mistaken notion of what it that it requires for its satisfaction. Hence disorder and dissatisfaction in anticipation of its right affinity is establish; but, as soon as this is exposed, the _Law of Attraction_ at once asserts itself and produces that better condition, the dream of which first gave direction to our thoughts.
Thus it is eternally right that desire is the cause of all feeling and all action; in other words, of all Life. The whole livingness of Life consists in receiving or in radiating forth the atmosphere bent by the _Law of Attraction_; and in the kingdom of mind these atmosphere necessarily become conscious out-reachings of the mind in the direction in which it feels attraction; that is to say, they become desires. Desire is therefore the mind seeking to manifest itself in some form which as yet exists only in its thought. It is the principle of creation, whether the thing made be a world or a wooden spoon; both have their origin in the desire to bring something into existence which does not yet continue living. Whatever may be the scale on which we exercise our creative skill, the motive power must always be desire.
Desire is the force behind all things; it is the moving principle of the universe and the innermost center of all Life. Hence, to take the negation of desire for our primal principle is to endeavor to stamp out Life itself; but what we have to do is to buy the requisite information by which to guide our desires to their right objects of satisfaction. To do this is the whole end of information; and any information applied otherwise is only a partial information, which, having failed in its function, is nothing but ignorance. Desire is thus the sum-total of the livingness of Life, for it is that in which all movement originates, whether on the physical level or the spiritual. In a word, desire is the creative power, and must be wisely guarded, trained, and directed accordingly; but thus to seek to renovate it to the highest perfection is the very opposite of trying to kill it outright.
And desire has fulfillment for its correlative. The desire and its fulfillment are bound together as cause and effect; and when we realize the law of their sequence, we shall be more than ever impressed with the supreme importance of Desire as the fantastic center of Life.
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