As A Man
Thinketh
by James Allen
Mind
is the Master-power that molds and makes, And Man is Mind, and evermore
he takes The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills Brings
forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:-- He thinks in secret, and it
comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking-glass.
http://website.lineone.net/~jamesallen1/think.htm
excerpt
from Chapter 2
Effect Of
Thought On Circumstances
A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be
intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated
or neglected, it must, and will bring forth. If no useful seeds are put
into it, then an abundance of useless weed-seeds will fall therein, and
will continue to produce their kind.
Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from
weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires so may a man
tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless and
impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and
fruits of right, useful and pure thoughts. By pursuing this process, a
man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his
soul, the director of his life. He also reveals, within himself, the
flaws of thought, and understands, with ever-increasing accuracy, how
the thought-forces and mind elements operate in the shaping of
character, circumstances, and destiny.
Thought and character are one, and as character can only
manifest and discover itself through environment and circumstance, the
outer conditions of a person's life will always be found to be
harmoniously related to his inner state. This does not mean that a man's
circumstances at any given time are an indication of his entire
character, but that those circumstances are so intimately connected with
some vital thought-element within himself that, for the time being, they
are indispensable to his development.
Every man is where he is by the law of his being; the thoughts
which he has built into his character have brought him there, and in the
arrangement of his life there is no element of chance, but all is the
result of a law which cannot err. This is just as true of those who feel
"out of harmony" with their surroundings as of those who are contented
with them.
As a progressive and evolving being, man is where he is that he
may learn that he may grow; and as he learns the spiritual lesson which
any circumstance contains for him, it passes away and gives place to
other circumstances.
Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself
to be the creature of outside conditions, but when he realizes that he
is a creative power, and that he may command the hidden soil and seeds
of his being out of which circumstances grow; he then becomes the
rightful master of himself.
That circumstances grow out of thought every man knows who has
for any length of time practiced self-control and self-purification, for
he will have noticed that the alteration in his circumstances has been
in exact ratio with his altered mental condition. So true is this that
when a man earnestly applies himself to remedy the defects in his
character, and makes swift and marked progress, he passes rapidly
through a succession of vicissitudes.
The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it
loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its
cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires
and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives it own.
Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to
take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act,
and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance. Good
thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit.
The outer world of circumstances shapes itself to the inner
world of thought, and both pleasant and unpleasant external conditions
are factors which make for the ultimate good of the individual. As the
reaper of his own harvest, man learns both of suffering and bliss.
Following the inmost desires, aspirations, thoughts, by which he
allows himself to be dominated (pursuing the will-o'-the wisps of impure
imaginings or steadfastly walking the highway of strong and high
endeavor), a man at last arrives at their fruition and fulfillment in
the outer conditions of his life. The laws of growth and adjustment
everywhere obtain.
A man does not come to the alms-house or the jail by the tyranny
of fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of grovelling thoughts and
base desires. Nor does a pure-minded man fall suddenly into crime by
stress of any mere external force; the criminal thought had long been
secretly fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its
gathered power. Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to
himself. No such conditions can exist as descending into vice and its
attendant sufferings apart from vicious inclinations, or ascending into
virtue and its pure happiness without the continued cultivation of
virtuous aspirations; and man, therefore, as the lord and master of
thought, is the maker of himself and the shaper of and author of
environment. Even at birth the soul comes of its own and through every
step of its earthly pilgrimage it attracts those combinations of
conditions which reveal itself, which are the reflections of its own
purity and impurity, its strength and weakness.
Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.
Their whims, fancies, and ambitions are thwarted at every step, but
their inmost thoughts and desires are fed with their own food, be it
foul or clean. Man is manacled only by himself; thought and action are
the jailors of Fate--they imprison, being base; they are also the angels
of Freedom--they liberate, being noble. Not what he wished and prays for
does a man get, but what he justly earns. His wishes and prayers are
only gratified and answered when they harmonize with his thoughts and
actions.
In the light of this truth what, then, is the meaning of
"fighting against circumstances"? It means that a man is continually
revolting against an effect without, while all the time he is nourishing
and preserving its cause in his heart. That cause may take the form of a
conscious vice or an unconscious weakness; but whatever it is, it
stubbornly retards the efforts of it possessor, and thus calls aloud for
remedy.
Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling
to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound. The man who does not
shrink from self-crucifixion can never fail to accomplish the object
upon which his heart is set. This is as true of earthly as of heavenly
things. Even the man whose sole object is to acquire wealth must be
prepared to make great personal sacrifices before he can accomplish his
object; and how
much more so he who would realize a strong and well-poised life?
