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54
A STUDY IN KARMA
-and have deliberately come to the conclusion that it is a desirable thing to have that virtue, to feel that emotion, to be moved by that wish, you quietly set to work to create a habit of thought.
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You think deliberately of it every morning for a few minutes, and soon you find that it arises spontaneously in the mind (by the aforesaid automatic activity of matter). You persist in your thought-creation, until you have formed a strong habit of thought, a 'habit which can only be changed by an equally prolonged process of thinking in the opposite direction. Even against the opposition of the will, the thought recurs to the mind-as many have found when they are unable to sleep in consequence of the involuntary recurrence of a harassing thought. If you have thus established the habit. say, of honesty, you will act honestly automatically; and if some strong gust
