The Power of Learning from DAD

Lesson 13 – Stimuli – Part 1

Stimuli can be understood as any overwhelming desires or emotion that motivates action. Not all stimuli is bad, for example an overwhelming feeling of compassion may cause you to donate money to charity. However there are stimuli such as fear, anger or temptations, which can have unproductive physical expressions. It is these latter forms of stimuli that will be our focus here.

Stimuli that have unproductive physical expressions can be transmuted into more productive means. Transmutation simply means the transfer or change of energy from one form to another. Through an effort of will, we are able to transmute the energy stored in, for example anger, into a more creative physical outlet. Why might you wish to transmute stimuli?

There is a creative force or even genius contained in strong emotions, however our default is generally to allow these emotions to have unproductive physical expressions. In anger, one lashes out, for example. Learning the skill of redirecting the high energy contained in these stimuli into creative and productive means taps into your creative imagination and can increase your chances of success, simply because you now have at your disposal a stronger and more intense energy being directed towards the achievement of your goals.

The creative potential energy contained in stimuli stems from the strong desires that are seeking physical expression, so the key to transmutation is utilising this strong desire towards other ends. Writing about these phenomena, Napoleon Hill writes:

“When harnessed, and redirected along other lines, this motivating force maintains all of its attributes of keenness of imagination, courage, etc., which may be used as powerful creative forces in literature, art, or in any other profession or calling.”

How then do we transmute stimuli?

In order to transmute stimuli, we need to utilise the power of the will to give stimuli forms of expression that enrich the mind, body and spirit. For example, recognising that anger is an overwhelming emotion, when angry in place of the angry outburst, we may wish to express our anger through painting or in the arts. Making the decision to express anger in this way takes a great deal of will power, however this effort in self-control pays dividends. That is because we achieve so much more creativity and innovation when we are able to understand and redirect stimuli.

When we activate our strong desires or strong emotions and direct these forces towards creative or problem solving outlets, we connect to the faculty of the creative imagination. It is the connection between the creative imagination and transmutation that makes transmutation such a powerful tool in the arsenal of success creation.

The faculty of creative imagination is also known as the sixth sense and through its activation we awake a genius that lays in each of us. When an idea flashes through the mind through a hunch or a light bulb moment that is the creative intelligence at work. True genius, is developed through the sixth sense, which is purposely activated when we redirect strong desires to creative ends. In summary, when you actively use the creative imagination with purpose, you are able to achieve genius results: new ideas, new ways of solving problems and new forms of self-expression. Imagine how much easier you can achieve success when we tap into our inner genius.

Lesson 13 – Stimuli – Part 2

Our five senses bombard us daily with information which often act as distractions and prevent us from tapping into, and getting in tune with our sixth sense. To tap into the faculty of the sixth sense, we must move beyond our basic five senses, into a world of thought. More exactly, we must become attune to an inner voice, which will initially provide us with hunches and aha! moments.

It is, the frequency and clarity of these hunches or aha! moments, that distinguishes the genius from other individuals. While we may look on, thinking that the genius has a special intellectual endowment, the truth is that we all have an inner genius, and our access to the source of information provided by this faculty can be developed through inside out education.

The more we use our sixth sense, the greater it becomes, enabling us to detect possibilities and opportunities that seem to “come from nowhere”. The great successes in education and business swear by this faculty, sometimes called intuition, as a primordial creative force, guiding their way through innovative ideas and solutions . For example, Steven Jobs wrote:

“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary”

Napoleon Hill adds: “the great artist, writers and musicians become great because they have acquired a habit of relying on the voice that speaks from within”

Albert Einstein concurs: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

What has this to do with transmutation of stimuli? Here is the connection: When we are in a state of high desire or high emotion, we temporarily increase the vibration of thought. It is this high frequency movement or agitation of thought that allows us to tune into our sixth sense, as it is a faculty that works for us at higher states of vibration. We should therefore welcome the presence of strong desires as the dominating thoughts in our minds, so long as we are able to transmute them to creative ends. Through transmutation of these strong desires and emotions to creative ends, we activate the sixth sense and can switch on our inner genius.

Let us end this section with an observation. We all have an inner voice that speaks to us. We all have a tendency of dismissing this voice as unrealistic or illogical. If you have a hunch or a flash of inspiration, that will be the faculty of the creative imagination offering up information for you to act upon or to dismiss. Learning to trust yourself, to trust your inner voice, and to act on these prompts can lead to the kind of innovations that generate incalculable success.

Note on this section: the sixth sense is a phenomenon that has been discussed by various thinkers. It is variously called, intuition, the faculty of creative imagination or the inner voice.