The Yogi practice of Character Building is based upon the knowledge of the wonderful powers of the sub-conscious plane of the mind.  The pupil is not required to pursue strenuous methods of repression or cultivation, but, on the contrary, is taught that such methods are opposed to nature’s plans, and that the best way is to imitate nature and to gradually unfold the desired characteristics by means of focusing the will-power and attention upon them.  The weeding out of undesirable characteristics is accomplished by the pupil cultivating the characteristics directly opposed to the undesirable ones.  For instance, if the pupil desires to overcome Fear, he is not instructed to concentrate on Fear with the idea of killing it out, but, instead, is taught to mentally deny that he has Fear, and then to concentrate his attention upon the ideal of Courage.  When Courage is developed, Fear is found to have faded away.  The positive always overpowers the negative.

In the word “ideal” is found the secret of the Yogi method of sub-conscious character building.  The teachings are to the effect that “ideals” may be built up by the bestowal of attention upon them.  The student is given the example of a rose bush.  He is taught that the plant will grow and flourish in the measure that care and attention is bestowed upon it and vice versa.  He is taught that the ideal of some desired characteristic is a mental rosebush, and that by careful attention it will grow and put forth leaves and flowers.  He is then given some minor mental trait to develop, and is taught to dwell upon it in thought—­to exercise his imagination and to mentally “see” himself attaining the desired quality.  He is given mantrams or affirmation to repeat, for the purpose of giving him a mental center around which to build an ideal.  There is a mighty power in words, used in this way, providing that the user always thinks of the meaning of the words, and makes a mental picture of the quality expressed by them, instead of merely repeating them parrot fashion.

The Yogi student is trained gradually, until he acquires the power of conscious direction of the sub-conscious mind in the building up process, which power comes to anyone—­Oriental or Occidental—­who will take the trouble to practice.  In fact, nearly everyone possesses and actively uses this power, although he may not be aware of it.  One’s character is largely the result of the quality of thoughts held in the mind, and of the mental pictures or ideals entertained by the person.  The man who constantly sees and thinks of himself as unsuccessful and down-trodden is very apt to grow ideals of thought forms of these things until his whole nature is dominated by them, and his every act works toward the objectification of the thoughts.  On the contrary, the man who makes an ideal of success and accomplishment finds that his whole mental nature seems to work toward that result—­the objectification of the ideal.