It happens very often that we find that a man who has been successful in life goes on being successful, and that a person who has once failed goes on failing. Looked at from a psychological point of view the reason is that the first man was impressed by his success and so he continued to be successful, and the other, who was impressed with his failure, continued to have failures because that impression suggested failure to him. But it is not because of the displeasure of God that unfortunate souls continue to be unfortunate in everything they do; it is that the suggestion of misfortune, of misery, keeps them miserable throughout their lives.

There was a wealthy man who had lost all his money and had become poor, yet he would not admit it. He said, "No, I have not lost it; I have still got it in my mind somewhere." And in six months time he became as rich as he was before. He did not allow his failure to suggest itself to him. And so it is with one's character. Often a person says, "I am stupid, I cannot think," and when he has said this several times naturally he becomes stupid. Sometimes he says it out of modesty, humility, or politeness; but this virtue will prove to be a sin. Also, many have lost their memory through suggestion. When they have forgotten something, which is a natural thing for a human being to do, they repeat to themselves, "How stupid! How forgetful on my part!" and that idea repeated twice or thrice deepens their forgetfulness.

There are many different drawbacks of this kind, as when a person says, "When I am among people I become nervous, I become timid. When I am asked to speak or to do something, I cannot do it." All these things are suggestions. Napoleon never liked to say, "I cannot." When a man says, "I cannot," he has made a suggestion to himself, he has weakened his power of accomplishing what he could otherwise have accomplished. To admit to oneself, "I have no force, I have no power, I have no thought, I have no intelligence," only means working against oneself.

Often people who are disappointed with the world say, "My heart has grown cold," but it is actually they who suggest to themselves that their heart has become cold. Others may say, "I can no longer love," but we have come from love, we are love itself, we are made of love; how then can we no longer love? All these suggestions which are undesirable and foolish work against our life. Then there are people who imagine that nobody likes them, that everybody hates them, that everybody is jealous of them. Nobody may hate them, nobody may even dislike them, but naturally when such a thought develops in their own minds it reflects upon others and creates in them the tendency to hate and dislike.

We should always remember that man is not created by God as wood is carved by the carpenter, for the carpenter is different from the wood, but that man is created out of the self of God; therefore all that is in God is in man. All the different powers and qualities that we need in life are attainable if we do not deny their existence in ourselves, but when we deny that they exist in us, then naturally life will deprive us of that gift which is our own. How can a man be fortunate when he believes and thinks that everything that he touches goes wrong? How can a man be loved when he carries in his heart the thought that everyone who sees him dislikes him, hates him, avoids him, works against him? Nobody is his enemy except he himself; by such an attitude one becomes one's own worst enemy.

This psychological idea should not of course keep us from cultivating the principle of modesty. If a man without learning says, "I am learned," it does not mean that he will become learned. If without having a voice he claims to be a tenor, this will not make him a tenor. If he has not got those qualities he should not profess them, though he may anticipate them and expect them. He should not say that he is not entitled to them; he should say, "I am entitled to all that opens the door to progress." But as soon as a man admits to himself that he has not got that quality, that intelligence, that power, that gift in him, he himself drives spirit out of that world.