Our Thoughts Shape Our Life 

Chapter 1 of The Master Key System discusses how our thoughts have the power to shape our life. It explains that everything in the world around us was once just an idea in someone’s mind, and that we too have the power to create our own reality through the thoughts we choose to think.

Our thoughts form the mold and out of the mold comes what we expereience. Our future is from within. Picture it, feel it, plan it, step into it.

Most people live in the visible plane, the world without. They never learn to dwell in the world within with intention and purpose. The world within is where we begin the process of creating our experiences and it is crucial that we learn to navigate this territory. We need to find the world within and be comfortable in this world because all growth is from within.

We must control our thoughts if we want to create our dreams.

The chapter goes on to explain that our thoughts are like seeds that we plant in our minds. We need to choose our thoughts carefully and deliberately. If we then nourish them with attention and focus, they will grow into our reality. However, if we allow negative or destructive thoughts to take root, they can also grow and have a negative impact on our lives.

The chapter also introduces the idea of the “Universal Mind,” which is a spiritual force that connects all things in the universe. By tapping into this Universal Mind and aligning our thoughts with its power, we can manifest our desires and achieve our goals.

Overall, Chapter 1 of The Master Key System encourages readers to take control of their thoughts and use them purposefully to create the life they want to live.

Meditation Exercise 1: Relaxation

This is the first of 20 specific meditation exercises that Haanel suggests. The exercises are progressive steps for learning how to meditate effectiviely. Each step will become a little more advanced.

This first exercise is a practice in controling the movements of your body. Complete control in the movement of your body is the first step for learning how to meditate effectively.

Pick a spot where you can be alone and no one will bother you. Choose a comfortable place to sit because you will go to this spot to complete all the following exercises as well. Then sit and close your eyes and don’t move for 15-30 minutes. You can think about anything you want but keep your body perfectly still. Practice this every day until you can sit without moving for at least 15 minutes. Then move on to Lesson 2.

Summary Points for Lesson 1

• Our thoughts have the power to shape our lives.
• Everything in the world around us was once just an idea in someone’s mind.
• We have the power to create our own reality through the thoughts we choose to think.
• Our thoughts are like seeds that we plant in our minds.
• If we nourish positive thoughts with attention and focus, they will grow into reality.
• Negative or destructive thoughts can also grow and have a negative impact on our lives.
• The Universal Mind is a spiritual force that connects all things in the universe.
• By tapping into the Universal Mind and aligning our thoughts with its power, we can manifest our desires and achieve our goals.
• It is important to take control of our thoughts and use them to create the life we want to live.

The Book Section: The Master Key System

Summary Lesson 1

“Tells upon what possession is based, explains the cause of all gain, explains the cause of loss as well as all other experiences in life. It explains how power is secured. It tells of a world within and how this world is governed. It explains how the solution for every problem in life may be found. It tells how practical men and women find the courage, power, hope, enthusiasm and confidence by which they are given the intelligence and wisdom to make their dreams come true. it tells how more efficiency is obtained and retained, and how our future may be placed under our own control instead of being at the mercy of any capricious or uncertain external power. It explains the cause of every condition, the reason for every experience, the orgin of all power, and why all power is absolutely under our own control.”

Lesson 1

INTRODUCTION – Lesson One

It is my privilege to enclose herewith Part One of The Master Key System. Would you bring into your life more power, get the power consciousness, more health, get the health consciousness, more happiness, get the happiness consciousness. Live the spirit of these things until they become yours by right. It will then become impossible to keep them from you. The things of the world are fluid to a power within man by which he rules them.

You need not acquire this power. You already have it. But you want to understand it; you want to use it; you want to control it; you want to impregnate yourself with it, so that you can go forward and carry the world before you.

Day by day as you go on and on, as you gain momentum, as your inspiration deepens, as your plans crystallize, as you gain understanding, you will come to realize that this world is no dead pile of stones and timber, but that it is a living thing! It is made up of the beating hearts of humanity. It is a thing of life and beauty.

It is evident that it requires understanding to work with material of this description, but those who come into this understanding, are inspired by a new light, a new force, they gain confidence and greater power each day, they realize their hopes and their dreams come true, life has a deeper, fuller, clearer meaning than before.

And, now, Part One….

Part One

That much gathers more is true on every plane of existence and that loss leads to greater loss is equally true.

Mind is creative, and conditions, environment and all experiences in life are the result of our habitual or predominant mental attitude.

The attitude of mind necessarily depends upon what we think. Therefore, the secret of all power, all achievement and all possession depends upon our method of thinking.

This is true because we must “be” before we can “do,” and we can “do” only to the extent which we “are,” and what we “are” depends upon what we “think.”

We cannot express powers that we do not possess. The only way by which we may secure possession of power is to become conscious of power, and we can never become conscious of power until we learn that all power is from within.

There is a world within – a world of thought and feeling and power; of light and life and beauty and, although invisible, its forces are mighty.

The world within is governed by mind. When we discover this world we shall find the solution for every problem, the cause for every effect; and since the world within is subject to our control, all laws of power and possession are also within our control.

The world without is a reflection of the world within. What appears without is what has been found within. In the world within may be found infinite Wisdom, infinite Power, infinite Supply of all that is necessary, waiting for unfoldment, development and expression. If we recognize these potentialities in the world within they will take form
in the world without.

Harmony in the world within will be reflected in the world without by harmonious conditions, agreeable surroundings, the best of everything. It is the foundation of health and a necessary essential to all greatness, all power, all attainment, all achievement and all success.

Harmony in the world within means the ability to control our thoughts, and to determine for ourselves how any experience is to affect us.

Harmony in the world within results in optimism and affluence; affluence within results in affluence without.

The world without reflects the circumstances and the conditions of the consciousness within.

If we find wisdom in the world within, we shall have the understanding to discern the marvelous possibilities that are latent in this world within, and we shall be given the power to make these possibilities manifest in the world without.

As we become conscious of the wisdom in the world within, we mentally take possession of this wisdom, and by taking mental possession we come into actual possession of the power and wisdom necessary to bring into manifestation the essentials necessary for our most complete and harmonious development.

The world within is the practical world in which the men and women of power generate courage, hope, enthusiasm, confidence, trust and faith, by which they are given the fine intelligence to see the vision and the practical skill to make the vision real.

Life is an unfoldment, not accretion. What comes to us in the world without is what we already possess in the world within.

All possession is based on consciousness. All gain is the result of an accumulative consciousness. All loss is the result of a scattering consciousness.

Mental efficiency is contingent upon harmony; discord means confusion; therefore, he who would acquire power must be in harmony with Natural Law.

We are related to the world without by the objective mind. The brain is the organ of this mind and the cerebro-spinal system of nerves puts us in conscious communication with every part of the body. This system of nerves responds to every sensation of light, heat, odor, sound and taste.

When this mind thinks correctly, when it understands the truth, when the thoughts sent through the cerebro-spinal nervous system to the body are constructive, these sensations are pleasant, harmonious.

The result is that we build strength, vitality and all constructive forces into our body, but it is through this same objective mind that all distress, sickness, lack, limitation and every form of discord and inharmony is admitted to our lives. It is therefore through the objective mind, by wrong thinking, that we are related to all destructive forces.

We are related to the world within by the subconscious mind. The solar plexus is the organ of this mind; the sympathetic system of nerves presides over all subjective sensations, such as joy, fear, love, emotion, respiration, imagination and all other subconscious phenomena. It is through the subconscious that we are connected with the
Universal Mind and brought into relation with the Infinite constructive forces of the Universe.

It is the coordination of these two centers of our being, and the understanding of their functions, which is the great secret of life. With this knowledge we can bring the objective and subjective minds into conscious cooperation and thus coordinate the finite and the infinite. Our future is entirely within our own control. It is not at the mercy of any capricious or uncertain external power.

All agree that there is but one Principle or Consciousness pervading the entire Universe, occupying all space, and being essentially the same in kind at every point of its presence. It is all powerful, all wisdom and always present. All thoughts and things are within Itself. It is all in all.

There is but one consciousness in the universe able to think; and when it thinks, its thoughts become objective things to it. As this Consciousness is omnipresent, it must be present within every individual; each individual must be a manifestation of that Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent Consciousness.

As there is only one Consciousness in the Universe that is able to think. It necessarily
follows that your consciousness is identical with the Universal Consciousness, or, in other words, all mind is one mind. There is no dodging this conclusion.

The consciousness that focuses in your brain cells is the same consciousness which focuses in the brain cells of every other individual. Each individual is but the individualization of the Universal, the Cosmic Mind.

The Universal Mind is static or potential energy; it simply is; it can manifest only
through the individual, and the individual can manifest only through the Universal. They are one.

The ability of the individual to think is his ability to act on the Universal and bring it into manifestation. Human consciousness consists only in the ability of man to think. Mind in itself is believed to be a subtle form of static energy, from which arises the activities called ‘thought’, which is the dynamic phase of mind. Mind is static energy, thought is dynamic energy -the two phases of the same thing. Thought is therefore the vibratory force formed by converting static mind into dynamic mind.

As the sum of all attributes are contained in the Universal Mind, which is Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent, these attributes must be present at all times in their potential form in every individual. Therefore, when the individual thinks, the thought is compelled by its nature to embody itself in an objectivity or condition which will correspond with its origin.

Every thought therefore is a cause and every condition an effect; for this reason it is absolutely essential that you control your thoughts so as to bring forth only desirable conditions.

All power is from within, and is absolutely under your control; it comes through exact knowledge and by the voluntary exercises of exact principles.

It should be plain that when you acquire a thorough understanding of this law, and are able to control your thought processes, you can apply it to any condition; in other words, you will have come into conscious cooperation with Omnipotent law which is the fundamental basis of all things.

The Universal Mind is the life principle of every atom which is in existence; every atom is continually striving to manifest more life; all are intelligent, and all are seeking to carry out the purpose for which they were created.

A majority of mankind lives in the world without; few have found the world within, and yet it is the world within that makes the world without; it is therefore creative and everything which you find in your world without has been created by you in the world within.

This system will bring you into a realization of power which will be yours when you understand this relation between the world without and the world within. The world within is the cause, the world without the effect; to change the effect you must change the cause.

You will at once see that this is a radically new and different idea; most men try to change effects by working with effects. They fail to see that this is simply changing one form of distress for another. To remove discord, we must remove the cause, and this cause can be found only in the world within.

All growth is from within. This is evident in all nature. Every plant, every animal, every human is a living testimony to this great law, and the error of the ages is in looking for strength or power from without.

The world within is the Universal fountain of supply, and the world without is the outlet to the stream. Our ability to receive depends upon our recognition of this Universal Fountain, this Infinite Energy of which each individual is an outlet, and so is one with every other individual.

Recognition is a mental process, mental action is therefore the interaction of the individual upon the Universal Mind, and as the Universal Mind is the intelligence which pervades all space and animates all living things, this mental action and reaction is the law of causation, but the principle of causation does not obtain in the individual but in the Universal Mind. It is not an objective faculty but a subjective process, and the results are seen in an infinite variety of conditions and experiences.

In order to express life there must be mind; nothing can exist without mind. Everything which exists is some manifestation of this one basic substance from which and by which all things have been created and are continually being recreated.

We live in a fathomless sea of plastic mind substance. This substance is ever alive and active. It is sensitive to the highest degree. It takes form according to the mental demand. Thought forms the mold or matrix from which the substance expresses.

Remember that it is in the application alone that the value consists, and that a practical understanding of this law will substitute abundance for poverty, wisdom for ignorance, harmony for discord and freedom for tyranny, and certainly there can be no greater blessing than these from a material and social standpoint.

Meditation Exercise 1: Relaxation

Now make the application: Select a room where you can be alone and undisturbed; sit
erect, comfortably, but do not lounge; let your thoughts roam where they will but be
perfectly still for from fifteen minutes to half an hour; continue this for three or four
days or for a week until you secure full control of your physical being.

Many will find this extremely difficult; others will conquer with ease, but it is absolutely
essential to secure complete control of the body before you are ready to progress. Next
week you will receive instructions for the next step; in the meantime you must have
mastered this one.

PART ONE – Study Questions with Answers

1. What is the world without in its relation to the world within?

The world without is a reflection of the world within.

2. Upon what does all possession depend?

All possession is based on consciousness.

3. How is the individual related to the objective world?

The individual is related to the objective world by the objective mind; the brain is the organ of this mind.

4. How is he related to the Universal Mind?

He is related to the Universal Mind by the subconscious mind; the Solar Plexus is the
organ of this mind.

5. What is the Universal Mind?

The Universal Mind is the life principle of every atom which is in existence.

6. How can the Individual act on the Universal?

The ability of the individual to think is his ability to act upon the Universal and bring it into manifestation.

7. What is the result of this action and interaction?

The result of this action and interaction is cause and effect; every
thought is a cause and every condition an effect.

8. How are harmonious and desirable conditions secured?

Harmonious and desirable conditions are obtained by right thinking.

9. What is the cause of all discord, inharmony, lack and limitation?

Discord, inharmony, lack and limitation are the result of wrong thinking.

10. What is the source of all power?

The source of all power is the world within, the Universal Fountain of Supply, the Infinite Energy of which each individual is an outlet.