One of the books from a popular writer starts with a sentence like this: “I have read a book one day and it changed my life”. The Game of Life from Florence Scovel Shinn is such a book which offers the life-changing answers to many main questions we have in mind.
Miss Shinn has lived in New York in the early 20th century. Her wisdom and excellent skills to decipher the universal laws in order to play the game of life are impressive. She starts her words by emphasizing that life is not a battle although many considers it so. It is actually a great game of Giving and Receiving. Whatever we send out, we receive it back. It sounds quite similar to the concept of Karma in Buddhism.
As the Greeks said: “Know Thyself.” The mind consists of the subconscious, conscious and superconscious. The subconscious is simply power, without direction. The superconscious mind is the God Mind within us and it is the realm of perfect ideas. It has no sense of humor. Therefore people often joke themselves into unhappy experiences.
“There is always plenty on man’s pathway; but it can only be brought into manifestation through desire, faith or the spoken word.” We must make to first move in order to have our wishes to be fulfilled. The secret formula is to “wish without worrying”. Then every desire will be instantly fulfilled.
Nevertheless, often just before the big achievement, comes apparent failure and discouragement. This can be sustained through good will and nonresistance. Nothing on earth can resist an absolutely nonresistant person. How can one erase all the fear and doubt from himself and become nonresistant? The only way is to get as much as far from oneself: being an observer of his own affairs.
One of the great points Ms. Shinn makes in her book is about courage: “Courage contains genius and magic. Face a situation fearlessly, and there is no situation to face: it falls away of its own weight.”
After reading this book, I understand water
