As A Man Thinketh
As A Man Thinketh
As A Man Thinketh
By
James Allen
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You On The Fast Track To Success
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James Allen
Author of "From Passion to Peace"
SERENITY
As a Man Thinketh
FOREWORD
THIS little volume (the result of meditation and experience) is not intended as an exhaustive treatise
on the much-written-upon subject of the power of thought. It is suggestive rather than explanatory,
its object being to stimulate men and women to the discovery and perception of the truth that
by virtue of the thoughts, which they choose and encourage; that mind is the master-weaver, both of
the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance, and that, as they may have
hitherto woven in ignorance and pain they may now weave in enlightenment and happiness.
JAMES ALLEN.
BROAD PARK AVENUE,
ILFRACOMBE,
ENGLAND
THOUGHT AND CHARACTER
T
he aphorism, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he," not only
embraces the whole of a man's being, but is so comprehensive as
to reach out to every condition and circumstance of his life. A
man is literally _what he thinks, _his character being the complete
sum of all his thoughts.
As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so
every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and
could not have appeared without them. This applies equally to those
acts called "spontaneous" and "unpremeditated" as to those, which are
deliberately executed.
Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits; thus
does a man garner in the sweet and bitter fruitage of his own
husbandry.
"Thought in the mind hath made us, What we are By thought was
wrought and built. If a man's mind Hath evil thoughts, pain comes on
him as comes The wheel the ox behind....
Man is a growth by law, and not a creation by artifice, and cause and
effect is as absolute and undeviating in the hidden realm of thought as
in the world of visible and material things. A noble and Godlike
character is not a thing of favour or chance, but is the natural result of
continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished
association with Godlike thoughts. An ignoble and bestial character, by
the same process, is the result of the continued harboring of groveling
thoughts.
Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul which have been
restored and brought to light in this age, none is more gladdening or
fruitful of divine promise and confidence than this--that man is the
master of thought, the moulder of character, and the maker and
shaper of condition, environment, and destiny.
As a being of Power, Intelligence, and Love, and the lord of his own
thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within
himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may
make himself what he wills.
Man is always the master, even in his weaker and most abandoned
state; but in his weakness and degradation he is the foolish master
who misgoverns his "household." When he begins to reflect upon his
condition, and to search diligently for the Law upon which his being is
established, he then becomes the wise master, directing his energies
with intelligence, and fashioning his thoughts to fruitful issues. Such is
the conscious master, and man can only thus become by discovering
within himself the laws of thought; which discovery is totally a matter
of application, self analysis, and experience.
Only by much searching and mining, are gold and diamonds obtained,
and man can find every truth connected with his being, if he will dig
deep into the mine of his soul; and that he is the maker of his
character, the moulder of his life, and the builder of his destiny, he
may unerringly prove, if he will watch, control, and alter his thoughts,
tracing their effects upon himself, upon others, and upon his life and
circumstances, linking cause and effect by patient practice and
investigation, and utilizing his every experience, even to the most
trivial, everyday occurrence, as a means of obtaining that knowledge
of himself which is Understanding, Wisdom, Power. In this direction, as
in no other, is the law absolute that "He that seeketh findeth; and to
him that knocketh it shall be opened;" for only by patience, practice,
and ceaseless importunity can a man enter the Door of the Temple of
Knowledge.
EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON CIRCUMSTANCES
M
an’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 laws of
thought, and understands, with ever-increasing accuracy, how the
thought-forces and mind elements operate in the shaping of his
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.
That circumstances grow out of thought every man knows who has for
any length of time practised 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 its 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.
A man does not come to the almshouse or the jail by the tyranny of
fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of groveling 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 the shaper and author of
environment. Even at birth the soul comes to 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. The "divinity that shapes our ends" is in ourselves; it is
our very self. Only himself manacles man: thought and action are the
gaolers of Fate--they imprison, being base; they are also the angels of
Freedom--they liberate, being noble. Not what he wishes 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.
Here is a rich man who is the victim of a painful and persistent disease
as the result of gluttony. He is willing to give large sums of money to
get rid of it, but he will not sacrifice his gluttonous desires. He wants
to gratify his taste for rich and unnatural viands and have his health as
well. Such a man is totally unfit to have health, because he has not yet
learned the first principles of a healthy life.
Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad
thoughts and actions can never produce good results. This is but
saying that nothing can come from corn but corn, nothing from nettles
but nettles. Men understand this law in the natural world, and work
with it; but few understand it in the mental and moral world (though
its operation there is just as simple and undeviating), and they,
therefore, do not co-operate with it.
Let a man cease from his sinful thoughts, and all the world will soften
towards him, and be ready to help him; let him put away his weakly
and sickly thoughts, and lo, opportunities will spring up on every hand
to aid his strong resolves; let him encourage good thoughts, and no
hard fate shall bind him down to wretchedness and shame. The world
is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of colours, which
at every succeeding moment it presents to you are the exquisitely
adjusted pictures of your ever-moving thoughts.
T
he body is the servant of the mind. It obeys the operations of the
mind, whether they be deliberately chosen or automatically
expressed. At the bidding of unlawful thoughts the body sinks
rapidly into disease and decay; at the command of glad and beautiful
thoughts it becomes clothed with youthfulness and beauty.
Strong, pure, and happy thoughts build up the body in vigour and
grace. The body is a delicate and plastic instrument, which responds
readily to the thoughts by which it is impressed, and habits of thought
will produce their own effects, good or bad, upon it.
Men will continue to have impure and poisoned blood, so long as they
propagate unclean thoughts. Out of a clean heart comes a clean life
and a clean body. Out of a defiled mind proceeds a defiled life and a
corrupt body. Thought is the fount of action, life, and manifestation;
make the fountain pure, and all will be pure.
Change of diet will not help a man who will not change his thoughts.
When a man makes his thoughts pure, he no longer desires impure
food.
Clean thoughts make clean habits. The so-called saint who does not
wash his body is not a saint. He who has strengthened and purified his
thoughts does not need to consider the malevolent microbe.
If you would protect your body, guard your mind. If you would renew
your body, beautify your mind. Thoughts of malice, envy,
disappointment, despondency, rob the body of its health and grace. A
sour face does not come by chance; it is made by sour thoughts.
Wrinkles that mar are drawn by folly, passion, and pride.
I know a woman of ninety-six who has the bright, innocent face of a
girl. I know a man well under middle age whose face is drawn into
inharmonious contours. The one is the result of a sweet and sunny
disposition; the other is the outcome of passion and discontent.
As you cannot have a sweet and wholesome abode unless you admit
the air and sunshine freely into your rooms, so a strong body and a
bright, happy, or serene countenance can only result from the free
admittance into the mind of thoughts of joy and goodwill and serenity.
On the faces of the aged there are wrinkles made by sympathy, others
by strong and pure thought, and others are carved by passion: who
cannot distinguish them? With those who have lived righteously, age is
calm, peaceful, and softly mellowed, like the setting sun. I have
recently seen a philosopher on his deathbed. He was not old except in
years. He died as sweetly and peacefully as he had lived.
There is no physician like cheerful thought for dissipating the ills of the
body; there is no comforter to compare with goodwill for dispersing
the shadows of grief and sorrow. To live continually in thoughts of ill
will, cynicism, suspicion, and envy, is to be confined in a self made
prison-hole. But to think well of all, to be cheerful with all, to patiently
learn to find the good in all--such unselfish thoughts are the very
portals of heaven; and to dwell day by day in thoughts of peace
toward every creature will bring abounding peace to their possessor.
THOUGHT AND PURPOSE
U
ntil thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent
accomplishment. With the majority the bark of thought is
allowed to "drift" upon the ocean of life. Aimlessness is a vice,
and such drifting must not continue for him who would steer clear of
catastrophe and destruction.
They who have no central purpose in their life fall an easy prey to
petty worries, fears, troubles, and self-pityings, all of which are
indications of weakness, which lead, just as surely as deliberately
planned sins (though by a different route), to failure, unhappiness, and
loss, for weakness cannot persist in a power evolving universe.
Those who are not prepared for the apprehension of a great purpose
should fix the thoughts upon the faultless performance of their duty,
no matter how insignificant their task may appear. Only in this way
can the thoughts be gathered and focused, and resolution and energy
be developed, which being done, there is nothing which may not be
accomplished.
The weakest soul, knowing its own weakness, and believing this truth
_that strength can only be developed by effort and practice, will, thus
believing, at once begin to exert itself, and, adding effort to effort,
patience to patience, and strength to strength, will never cease to
develop, and will at last grow divinely strong.
As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and
patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong
by exercising himself in right thinking.
The will to do springs from the knowledge that we can do. Doubt and
fear are the great enemies of knowledge, and he who encourages
them, who does not slay them. thwarts himself at every step.
He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure. His
every, thought is allied with power, and all difficulties are bravely met
and wisely overcome. His purposes are seasonably planted, and they
bloom and bring forth fruit, which does not fall prematurely to the
ground.
A
ll that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct
result of his own thoughts. In a justly ordered universe, where
loss of equipoise would mean total destruction, individual
responsibility must be absolute. A man's weakness and strength,
purity and impurity, are his own, and not another man's; they are
brought about by himself, and not by another; and they can only be
altered by himself, never by another. His condition is also his own, and
not another man's. His suffering and his happiness are evolved from
within. As he thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.
It has been usual for men to think and to say, "Many men are slaves
because one is an oppressor; let us hate the oppressor." Now,
however, there is amongst an increasing few a tendency to reverse
this judgment, and to say, "One man is an oppressor because many
are slaves; let us despise the slaves."
He who has conquered weakness, and has put away all selfish
thoughts, belongs neither to oppressor nor oppressed. He is free.
A man can only rise, conquer, and achieve by lifting up his thoughts.
He can only remain weak, and abject, and miserable by refusing to lift
up his thoughts.
The universe does not favor the greedy, the dishonest, the vicious,
although on the mere surface it may sometimes appear to do so; it
helps the honest, the magnanimous, the virtuous. All the great
Teachers of the ages have declared this in varying forms, and to prove
and know it a man has but to persist in making himself more and more
virtuous by lifting up his thoughts.
A man may rise to high success in the world, and even to lofty
altitudes in the spiritual realm, and again descend into weakness and
wretchedness by allowing arrogant, selfish, and corrupt thoughts to
take possession of him.
T
he dreamers are the saviors of the world. As the visible world is
sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and
sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions
of their solitary dreamers. Humanity cannot forget its dreamers; it
cannot let their ideals fade and die; it lives in them; it knows them as
they realities which it shall one day see and know.
He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one
day realize it. Columbus cherished a vision of another world, and he
discovered it; Copernicus fostered the vision of a multiplicity of worlds
and a wider universe, and he revealed it; Buddha beheld the vision of
a spiritual world of stainless beauty and perfect peace, and he entered
into it.
Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs
in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that
drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful
conditions, all, heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true
to them, your world will at last be built.
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your
Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the
prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.
The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak
sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision
of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.
And you, too, youthful reader, will realize the Vision (not the idle wish)
of your heart, be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both, for you will
always gravitate toward that which you, secretly, most love. Into your
hands will be placed the exact results of your own thoughts; you will
receive that which you earn; no more, no less. Whatever your present
environment may be, you will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts,
your Vision, your Ideal. You will become as small as your controlling
desire; as great as your dominant aspiration: in the beautiful words of
Stanton Kirkham Davis, "You may be keeping accounts, and presently
you shall walk out of the door that for so long has seemed to you the
barrier of your ideals, and shall find yourself before an audience--the
pen still behind your ear, the ink stains on your fingers and then and
there shall pour out the torrent of your inspiration. You may be driving
sheep, and you shall wander to the city-bucolic and open-mouthed;
shall wander under the intrepid guidance of the spirit into the studio of
the master, and after a time he shall say, 'I have nothing more to
teach you.' And now you have become the master, who did so recently
dream of great things while driving sheep. You shall lay down the saw
and the plane to take upon yourself the regeneration of the world."
The thoughtless, the ignorant, and the indolent, seeing only the
apparent effects of things and not the things themselves, talk of luck,
of fortune, and chance. Seeing a man grow rich, they say, "How lucky
he is!" Observing another become intellectual, they exclaim, "How
highly favored he is!" And noting the saintly character and wide
influence of another, they remark, "How chance aids him at every
turn!" They do not see the trials and failures and struggles which these
men have voluntarily encountered in order to gain their experience;
have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have made, of the undaunted
efforts they have put forth, of the faith they have exercised, that they
might overcome the apparently insurmountable, and realize the Vision
of their heart. They do not know the darkness and the heartaches;
they only see the light and joy, and call it "luck". They do not see the
long and arduous journey, but only behold the pleasant goal, and call
it "good fortune," do not understand the process, but only perceive the
result, and call it chance.
In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the
strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. Gifts,
powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits
of effort; they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions
realized.
The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in
your heart--this you will build your life by, this you will become.
SERENITY
C
almness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. It is
the result of long and patient effort in self-control. Its presence
is an indication of ripened experience, and of a more than
ordinary knowledge of the laws and operations of thought.
The calm man, having learned how to govern himself, knows how to
adapt himself to others; and they, in turn, reverence his spiritual
strength, and feel that they can learn of him and rely upon him. The
more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence,
his power for good. Even the ordinary trader will find his business
prosperity increase as he develops a greater self-control and
equanimity, for people will always prefer to deal with a man whose
demeanor is strongly equable.
The strong, calm man is always loved and revered. He is like a shade-
giving tree in a thirsty land, or a sheltering rock in a storm. "Who does
not love a tranquil heart, a sweet-tempered, balanced life? It does not
matter whether it rains or shines, or what changes come to those
possessing these blessings, for they are always sweet, serene, and
calm. That exquisite poise of character, which we call serenity is the
last lesson of culture, the fruitage of the soul. It is precious as wisdom,
more to be desired than gold--yea, than even fine gold. How
insignificant mere money seeking looks in comparison with a serene
life--a life that dwells in the ocean of Truth, beneath the waves,
beyond the reach of tempests, in the Eternal Calm!
"How many people we know who sour their lives, who ruin all that is
sweet and beautiful by explosive tempers, who destroy their poise of
character, and make bad blood! It is a question whether the great
majority of people do not ruin their lives and mar their happiness by
lack of self-control. How few people we meet in life who are well
balanced, who have that exquisite poise which is characteristic of the
finished character!
End
As A Man Thinketh