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The Questions & Answers.
This is truly the last section of The Master Key System.
This was the section in the original book in which Haanel answered questions from students of his correspondence course. There is a wealth of information here and it should not be overlooked.
So, we didn’t overlook it.
We made this episode of the Master Key Coaching Teleseminars the big Questions & Answers session.
Please enjoy what we reviewed.
Ready to jump into the Questions & Answers?
Let’s get it on!
“Hewers of Wood”
During our big Questions & Answers session, I reviewed questions from four sources.
- Haanel’s Questions & Answers
- Questions I received from the survey I did before I began these Teleseminars
- Questions I received via email
- Questions during the call
All of those made for a busy evening.
The first questions I reviewed was from Haanel’s Questions & Answers.
“Unless we are willing to think we shall have to work, and the less we think the more we shall work, and the less we shall get for our work.” Is it possible to conceive of a world in which there are no “hewers of wood?”
This question is asking what many of us ask today: Can there ever be a world without people who dig ditches or work the counter at McDonald’s?
In other words, what if everyone succeeded at doing what they wanted to do? Who would do the “grunt work”?
Haanel addresses the question thusly:
Thought has taken much drudgery out of work, but much so-called “scientific management” and “efficiency and engineering systems” look upon millions of human beings as mere machines capable of making so many motions less or more per hour.
To labor is to serve and all service is honorable. But a “hewer of wood” contemplates blind service instead of intelligent service. Labor is the creative instinct in manifestation. Owing to the changes which have taken place in the industrial world, the creative instinct no longer finds expression. A man cannot build his own house, he cannot even make his own garden, he can by no means direct his own labor. He is therefore deprived of the greatest joy which can come to man, the joy of achieving, of creating, of accomplishing, and so this great power is perverted and turned into destructive channels. He can construct nothing for himself so he begins to destroy the works of his more fortunate fellows. Labor is however, finding that the Universe is not a chaos but a cosmos, that it is governed by immutable laws, that every condition is the result of a cause and that the same cause invariably produces the same effect. It is finding that these causes are mental, that thought predetermines action. It is finding that constructive thought brings about constructive conditions and destructive thought brings about destructive conditions.
The “key” here is “blind service instead of intelligent service.” Now, this goes beyond the old — and tired — adage “Don’t work harder, work smarter.” Haanel is referring here to thinking. Plain and simple thinking instead of following.
Thinking is, as you know, one of the main skills you should acquire from studying The Master Key System. Here, Haanel is once again imploring us to think; to not just follow a recipe or dictums, but to really and truly think.
That being said, Haanel defines labor as the “creative instinct in manifestation.”
Instinct. That’s something at the root of it. At the core. It’s what drives us. It’s what produces the things around us.
It’s true that everything begins with a thought. It doesn’t end there, though. That is just the beginning — because “though predetermines action.” If our thoughts be constructive, then the results will be constructive as well.
Those who don’t follow their creative instincts become those who tear down the works of others. This sounds suspiciously similar to a sociologist named Emile Durkheim, much of whose work was based on man’s separation from the things around him — anomie.
Thus, Haanel is imploring us to be creative outlets; to work and service intelligently.
The “5%-ers”
The next question we reviewed from Haanel:
What is the meaning of the statement, “Only five percent have the vision to annex the strategic position, to see and feel a thing before it happens?”
And the answer:
Ninety-five percent of the people are busy attempting to change effects. Something happens which they do not like and they try to change the situation. They soon find that they are simply changing one form of distress for another. The other five percent are busily engaged with causes. They know that in order to make any permanent change it is the cause which they must seek. They soon find that the cause is within their control. It is the five percent that do the thinking, and the ninety-five percent which merely accept the thought of others. It is those only who think who can see and feel a thing before it happens.
Once again, thinking.
The “5%-ers” are the people who think and who don’t necessarily accept the thoughts of others.
Aim to become a “5%-er”!
Turn on the Light
The last question in Haanel’s Questions & Answers is a deep one. It’s a question that we ask today — and we’ve probably asked it throughout the ages.
You are, without doubt, correct in stating that Carlyle’s attitude of hatred of the bad was not conducive toward his own best development; on the other hand, what should be the attitude toward the giant evils of the day, such as war, graft, murder, vice, theft and the like? Is it not often true that a tearing down, a clearing away of the brush piles, so to speak, must precede constructive work?
In other words, why is there evil in the world and what can we do about it? Do we have to destroy what we have and build anew? A veritable bloody revolution?
No, it is not true. The tearing down process is not at all necessary. We do not need to laboriously shovel the darkness out of a room before letting in the light; on the contrary, all that is necessary is to turn on the light and the darkness vanishes; likewise, if but one-tenth of one per cent of the money and effort was spent in constructive work that is now being spent in destructive work, the giant evils of the day to which you refer would disappear as if by magic.
I agree with the first part. Much of the problems in our life can be assuaged simply by “letting in the light.” Is that trite? Perhaps a little. But is it true? More often than you think.
As we’ve come to realize from reading and studying The Master Key System, when we react, we are generally reacting to the “world without.” That’s often times the land of shadows and shibboleths. It’s our perceptions.
To change them, we have to change the “world within.” And when we do that, we generally find it is much like flicking a light switch.
As for the second part of what Haanel wrote, that may or may not be true. I guess it depends on one’s political point of view. And we will leave it at that.
The Survey Results
Before the Master Key Coaching teleseminars started, I posted a survey online to see what people wanted to learn. I received hundreds of responses. Apart from deciding what day and time these calls would happen, I posed open-ended questions about what people wanted to know.
The results were overwhelming, which was incredible.
Those responses guided what I presented during the course of our review of The Master Key System.
Those responses will also serve as a guide as we move forward.
There were only a couple of “stragglers,” as I like to call them, that didn’t get the attention they deserved. Listen to the audio of the call. Those stragglers raised some good points that will help you to understand this philosophy better.
An Email Question – Repetition and Visualization
I receive lots of questions via email. This one caught my eye.
Some say that we need repetition (via visualisation of our specific desires) in order to convince the subconscious mind that we are wealthy and to counter the past programming of poverty. Yet others say that once a request to the universe has been made, to keep going over it says that we don’t believe that we have/can have what we’re seeking and thus reinforces the poverty mentality.
It would be great of you could clarify this.
What we are doing with this philosophy is a reprogramming of our minds – of our subconscious. We know that. That’s why we’re here.
The key is how we are doing it.
The purpose of the first three exercises in The Master Key System is to teach us — to instill within us — the ability to relax, to loose our anxieties and fears.
You see, it will take repetition to “reprogram” ourselves.
It must be done properly, though. And the proper way to do it is when we are relaxed.
The person who posed this question is correct in a way. If we repeat our visualizations or affirmations when we are in an anxious or fearful or reactionary state, then we will only reinforce what we don’t want. That is why those first three exercises are so important: we must be able to relax and get into our “state.”
That’s the key right there. We “let go” of the bad thoughts and then we enter our state and then we visualize or affirm.
Easy, isn’t it?
And Then the Callers Asked Questions
Our frequent caller, “John in Orlando,” and I had a really riveting conversation. During it, we discussed perseverance, the tendency for us humans to needlessly complicate things, and how acknowledging that in the end we’re all going to die can be a greatly liberating thought.
Take the time to listen to the call. Listen to it with some friends. It’s really pretty interesting and insightful. Then again, what did you expect when you have the brightest and most insightful callers and listeners in all “podcast-dom”?
I hope that somewhere in here a question of yours was answered. Actually, I hope that all of them were answered!
If not, then please let me know. I shall endeavor to be of service to you.
Until next week, I wish you and yours the best of everything…