As A Man Thinketh (3) James Allen

As A Man Thinketh (3)

V

The Thought-Factor In Achievement


All 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 sufferings and his happiness are
evolved from within. As he thinks, so is he; as he continues to
think, so he remains.

A strong man cannot help a weaker unless that weaker is
willing to be helped. And even then the weak man must become
strong of himself. He must, by his own efforts, develop the strength
which he admires in another. None but himself can alter his
condition.

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!" But
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."

The truth is that oppressor and slaves are cooperators in
ignorance, and, while seeming to afflict each other, are in reality,
afflicting themselves. A perfect knowledge perceives the action of
law in the weakness of the oppressed and the misapplied power of
the oppressor. A perfect love, seeing the suffering which both states
entail, condemns neither; a perfect compassion embraces both
oppressor and oppressed. He who has conquered weakness and
has pushed 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, abject, and miserably by
refusing to lift up his thoughts.

Before a man can achieve anything, even in worldly things, he
must lift his thoughts above slavish animal indulgence. He may 

not, in order to succeed, give up all animality and selfishness,
necessarily, but a portion of it must, at least, be sacrificed. A man
whose first thought is bestial indulgence could neither think clearly
nor plan methodically. He could not find and develop his latent
resources and would fail in any undertaking. Not having begun to
manfully control his thoughts, he is not in a position to control
affairs and to adopt serious responsibilities. He is not fit to act
independently and stand alone. But he is limited only by the
thoughts that he chooses.

There can be no progress nor achievement without sacrifice,
and a man's worldly success will be by the measure that he
sacrifices his confused animal thoughts, and fixes his mind on 

the development of his plans, and the strengthening of his resolution
and self-reliance. The higher he lifts his thoughts, the greater will
be his success, the more blessed and enduring will be his
achievements.

The universe does not favor the greedy, the dishonest, the
vicious, although on the mere surface it sometimes may appear to
do so. It helps the honest, the magnanimous, the virtuous. All the
great teachers of the ages have declared this in varying ways, and 

to prove it and to know it a man has but to persist in making 

himself increasingly virtuous by lifting his thoughts.

Intellectual achievements are the result of thought
consecrated to the search for knowledge or for the beautiful and
true in nature. Such achievements may sometimes be connected
with vanity and ambition, but they are not the outcome of those
characteristics. They are the natural outgrowth of long and arduous
effort, and of pure and unselfish thoughts.

Spiritual achievements are the consummation of holy
aspirations. He who lives constantly in the conception of noble and
lofty thoughts, who dwells upon all that is pure and selfless, will, as
surely as the sun reaches its zenith and the moon its full, become
wise and noble in character and rise into a position of influence and
blessedness. Achievement of any kind is the crown of effort, the
diadem of thought. By the aid of self-control, resolution, purity,
righteousness, and well-directed thought a man ascends. By the aid
of animality, indolence, impurity, corruption, and confusion of
thought a man descends.

A man may rise to high success in the world, even to lofty
attitudes in the spiritual realm, and again descend into weakness
and wretchedness by allowing arrogant, selfish, and corrupt
thoughts to take possession of him.

Victories attained by right thought can be maintained only by
watchfulness. Many give way when success is assured, and rapidly
fall back into failure.

All achievements, whether in the business, intellectual, or
spiritual world, are the result of definitely directed thought. They
are governed by the same law, and are of the same method. The
only difference lies in the object of attainment.

He who would accomplish little need sacrifice little; he who
would achieve much must sacrifice much. He who would attain
highly must sacrifice greatly.

VI

Visions And Ideals

The 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 the realities which it shall one day see and know.

Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage--these are the
makers of the after-world, the architects of heaven. The world is
beautiful because they have lived. Without them, laboring humanity
would perish.

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.

To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to achieve. Shall man's
basest desires receive the fullest measure of gratification, and his
purest aspirations starve for lack of sustenance? Such is not the
Law. Such a condition can never obtain, "Ask and receive."
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 a soul a waking angle stirs. Dreams are the
seedlings of realities.

Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not
remain so if you only perceive an ideal and strive to reach it. You
cannot travel within and stand still without. Here is a youth hard
pressed by poverty and labor. Confined long hours in an unhealthy
workshop; unschooled and lacking all the arts of refinement. But he
dreams of better things. He thinks of intelligence, or refinement, of
grace and beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal
condition of life. The wider liberty and a larger scope takes
possession of him; unrest urges him to action, and he uses all his
spare times and means to the development of his latent powers and
resources. Very soon so altered has his mind become that the
workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony
with his mind-set that it falls out of his life as a garment is cast
aside. And with the growth of opportunities that fit the scope of his
expanding powers, he passes out of it altogether. Years later we see
this youth as a grown man. We find him a master of certain forces
of the mind that he wields with worldwide influence and almost
unequaled power. In his hands he holds the cords of gigantic
responsibilities; he speaks and lives are changed; men and women
hang upon his words and remold their characters. Sun-like, he
becomes the fixed and luminous center around which innumerable
destinies revolve.

He has realized the vision of his youth. He has become one
with his ideal.

And you, too, will realize the vision (not just 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 love most. 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.
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 skilled intellectually,
they exclaim, "How highly favored he is!" And noting the saintly
character and wide influence of another, they remark, "How chance
helps him at every turn!" They do not see the trials and failures and
struggles which these men have encountered in order to gain their
experience. They have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have
made, of the undaunted efforts they have put forth, of the faith they
have exercised so 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." Do not see the long, 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.
The strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Change is
not. Gifts, powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions
are the fruits of effort. They are thoughts completed, objectives
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.





VII

Serenity


Calmness 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.

A man becomes calm in the measure that he understands
himself as a thought-evolved being. For such knowledge
necessitates the understanding of others as the result of thought,
and as he develops a right understanding, and sees ever more
clearly the internal relations of things by the action of cause and
effect, he ceases to fuss, fume, worry, and grieve. He remains
poised, steadfast, serene.

The calm man, having learned how to govern himself, knows
how to adapt himself to others. And they, in turn reverence his
spiritual strength. They feel that they can learn from 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 equitable.

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 who possess these blessings, for they are always
serene and calm. That exquisite poise of character that we call
serenity is the last lesson of culture. It is the flowering of life, the
fruitage of the soul. It is precious as wisdom--more desirable than
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 the 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!

Yes, humanity surges with uncontrolled passion, is
tumultuous with ungoverned grief, is blown about by anxiety and
doubt. only the wise man, only he whose thoughts are controlled
and purified, makes the winds and the storms of the soul obey him.
Tempest-tossed souls, wherever you may be, under whatever
conditions you may live, know this: In the ocean of life the isles of
blessedness are smiling and the sunny shore of your ideal awaits
your coming. Keep your hands firmly upon the helm of thought. In
the core of your soul reclines the commanding Master; He does but
sleep; wake Him. Self-control is strength. Right thought is mastery.
Calmness is power. 

Say unto your heart, "Peace. Be still!"

the end