The illus­tra­tions given in the last chap­ter will have con­veyed to the reader the fact that the first step toward get­ting rich is to con­vey the idea of your wants to the form­less substance.

This is true, and you will see that in order to do so it becomes nec­es­sary to relate your­self to the form­less intel­li­gence in a har­mo­nious way.

To secure this har­mo­nious rela­tion is a mat­ter of such pri­mary and vital impor­tance that I shall give some space to its dis­cus­sion here and give you instruc­tions which, if you will fol­low them, will be cer­tain to bring you into per­fect unity of mind with the supreme power, or God.

The whole process of men­tal adjust­ment and atune­ment can be summed up in one word: Gratitude.

First, you believe that there is one intel­li­gent sub­stance, from which all things pro­ceed. Sec­ond, you believe that this sub­stance gives you every­thing you desire. And third, you relate your­self to it by a feel­ing of deep and pro­found gratitude.

Many peo­ple who order their lives rightly in all other ways are kept in poverty by their lack of grat­i­tude. Hav­ing received one gift from God, they cut the wires which con­nect them with him by fail­ing to make acknowledgment.

It is easy to under­stand that the nearer we live to the source of wealth, the more wealth we shall receive, and it is easy also to under­stand that the soul that is always grate­ful lives in closer touch with God than the one which never looks to him in thank­ful acknowl­edg­ment. The more grate­fully we fix our minds on the supreme when good things come to us, the more good things we will receive, and the more rapidly they will come. And the rea­son sim­ply is that the men­tal atti­tude of grat­i­tude draws the mind into closer touch with the source from which the bless­ings come.

If it is a new thought to you that grat­i­tude brings your whole mind into closer har­mony with the cre­ative ener­gies of the uni­verse, con­sider it well, and you will see that it is true. The good things you have already have come to you along the line of obe­di­ence to cer­tain laws. Grat­i­tude will lead your mind out along the ways by which things come, and it will keep you in close har­mony with cre­ative thought and pre­vent you from falling into com­pet­i­tive thought.

Grat­i­tude alone can keep you look­ing toward the all, and pre­vent you from falling into the error of think­ing of the sup­ply as lim­ited — and to do that would be fatal to your hopes.

There is a law of grat­i­tude, and it is absolutely nec­es­sary that you should observe the law if you are to get the results you seek. The law of grat­i­tude is the nat­ural prin­ci­ple that action and reac­tion are always equal and in oppo­site directions.

The grate­ful out­reach­ing of your mind in thank­ful praise to the supreme intel­li­gence is a lib­er­a­tion or expen­di­ture of force. It can­not fail to reach that to which it addressed, and the reac­tion is an instan­ta­neous move­ment toward you.

“Draw nigh unto God, and he will draw nigh unto you.” That is a state­ment of psy­cho­log­i­cal truth. And if your grat­i­tude is strong and con­stant, the reac­tion in form­less sub­stance will be strong and con­tin­u­ous; the move­ment of the things you want will be always toward you. Notice the grate­ful atti­tude that Jesus took, how he always seems to be say­ing, “I thank thee, Father, that thou hear­est me.” You can­not exer­cise much power with­out grat­i­tude, for it is grat­i­tude that keeps you con­nected with power.

But the value of grat­i­tude does not con­sist solely in get­ting you more bless­ings in the future. With­out grat­i­tude you can­not long keep from dis­sat­is­fied thought regard­ing things as they are.

The moment you per­mit your mind to dwell with dis­sat­is­fac­tion upon things as they are, you begin to lose ground. You fix atten­tion upon the com­mon, the ordi­nary, the poor, the squalid, and the mean — and your mind takes the form of these things. Then you will trans­mit these forms or men­tal images to the form­less. And the com­mon, the poor, the squalid, and the mean will come to you.

To per­mit your mind to dwell upon the infe­rior is to become infe­rior and to sur­round your­self with infe­rior things. On the other hand, to fix your atten­tion on the best is to sur­round your­self with the best, and to become the best. The cre­ative power within us makes us into the image of that to which we give our atten­tion. We are of think­ing sub­stance, too, and think­ing sub­stance always takes the form of that which it thinks about.

The grate­ful mind is con­stantly fixed upon the best. There­fore it tends to become the best. It takes the form or char­ac­ter of the best, and will receive the best.

Also, faith is born of grat­i­tude. The grate­ful mind con­tin­u­ally expects good things, and expec­ta­tion becomes faith. The reac­tion of grat­i­tude upon one’s own mind pro­duces faith, and every out­go­ing wave of grate­ful thanks­giv­ing increases faith. The per­son who has no feel­ing of grat­i­tude can­not long retain a liv­ing faith, and with­out a liv­ing faith you can­not get rich by the cre­ative method, as we shall see in the fol­low­ing chapters.

It is nec­es­sary, then, to cul­ti­vate the habit of being grate­ful for every good thing that comes to you and to give thanks con­tin­u­ously. And because all things have con­tributed to your advance­ment, you should include all things in your gratitude.

Do not waste a lot of time think­ing or talk­ing about the short­com­ings or wrong actions of those in power. Their orga­ni­za­tion of the world has cre­ated your oppor­tu­nity; all you get really comes to you because of them. Do not rage against cor­rupt politi­cians. If it were not for politi­cians we should fall into anar­chy and your oppor­tu­nity would be greatly lessened.

God has worked a long time and very patiently to bring us up to where we are in indus­try and gov­ern­ment, and he is going right on with his work. There is not the least doubt that he will do away with plu­to­crats, trust mag­nates, cap­tains of indus­try, and politi­cians as soon as they can be spared, but in the mean­time, they are all very nec­es­sary. Remem­ber that they are all help­ing to arrange the lines of trans­mis­sion along which your riches will come to you, and be grate­ful. This will bring you into har­mo­nious rela­tions with the good in every­thing, and the good in every­thing will move toward you.

• The Science Of Getting Rich
• Preface
• The Right To Be Rich
• There is a Science of Getting Rich
• Is Opportunity Monopolized?
• The First Principle in The Science
• Increasing Life
• How Riches Come To You
• Gratitude
• Thinking in The Certain Way
• Further Use of The Will
• How To Use The Will
• Acting in The Certain Way
• Efficient Action
• Getting Into The Right Business
• The Impression of Increase
• The Advancing Personality
• Cautions and Observations
• A Summary of The Science