EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON CIRCUMSTANCES (part B)
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 him-
self 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, blossom-
ing sooner or later into act, and bearing its own fruit-
age of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear
good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit.
The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the
inner world of thought, and both pleasant and unpleasant
external conditions are factors which make for the ulti-
mate good of the individual. As the reaper of his own
harvest, man learns both by 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 almshouse or the jail by
the tyrrany 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 secret-
ly 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 suffer-
ings apart from vicious inclinations, or ascending into
virtue and its pure happiness without the continued culti-
vation 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 pil-
grimage 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
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. Man is manacled only by himself:
thought and action are the jailers of Fate--they imprison
being base; they are also the angels of Freedom--they liber-
ate, 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.
In the light of this truth, what, then, is the meaning
of "fighting agains circumstances"? It means that a man is
continually revolting against an effect without, while
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 its 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?
Here is a man who is wretchedly poor. He is extremely
anxious that his surroundings and home comforts should be
improved, yet all the time he shirks his work, and considers
himself justified in trying to decieve his employer on the
ground of the insufficiency of his wages. Such a man does
not understand the simplest rudiments of those principles
which are the baseis of true prosperity, and is not only
totally unfitted to rise out of his wretchedness, but is
actually attracting to himself a still deeper wretchedness
by dwelling in, and acting out, indolent, deceptive, and
unmanly thoughts.
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.
Here is an employer of labor who adopts crooked measures
to avoid paying the regulation wage, and, in the hope of
making larger profits, reduces the wages of his workpeople.
Such a man is altogether unfitted for prosperity, and when
he finds himself bankrupt, both as regards reputation and
riches, he blames circumstances, not knowing that he is the
sole author of his condition.
I have introduced these three cases merely as illustra-
tive of the truth that man is the causer (though nearly
always unconsciously) of his circumstances, and that, while
aiming at a good end, he is continually frustrating its
accomplishment by encouraging thoughts and desires which
cannot possibly harmonize with that end. Such cases could
be multiplied and varied almost indefinitely, but this is
not necessary, as the reader can, if he so resolves, trace
the action of the laws of thought in his own mind and life,
and until this is done, mere external facts cannot serve as
a ground of reasoning.
Circumstances, however, are so complicated, thought is
so deeply rooted, and the conditions of happiness vary so
vastly with individuals, that a man's entire soul
condition (althought it may be known to himself) cannot
be judged by another from the external aspect of his life
alone. A man may be honest in certain directions, yet suf-
fer privations; a man may be dishonest in certain directions
yet acquire wealth; but the conclusion usually formed that
the one man fails because of his particular honesty,
and that the other prospers because of his particular
dishonesty, is the result of superficial judgment, which
assumes that the dishonest man is almost totally corrupt,
and the honest man almost entirely virtuous. In the light
of a deeper knowledge and wider experience, such judgement
is found to be erroneous. The dishonest man may have some
admirable virtues which the other does not possess; and the
honest man obnoxious vices which are absent in the other.
The honest man reaps the good results of his honest thoughts
and acts; he also brings upon himself the sufferings which
his vices produce. The dishonest man likewise garners his
own suffering and happiness.
It is pleasing to human vanity to believe that one
suffers because of one's virtue; but not until a man
has extirpated every sickly, bitter, and impure thought
from his mind, and washed away every sinful stain from
his soul, can he be in a position to know and declare
that his sufferings are the result of his good, and not
of his bad qualities; and on the way to, yet long before
he has reached, that supreme perfection, he will have
found, working in his mind and life, the Great Law which
is absolutely just, and which cannot, therefore, give
good for evil, evil for good. Possessed of such knowl-
edge, he will then know, looking back upon his past
ignorance and blindness, that his life is, and always
was, justly ordered, and that all his past experiences
good and bad, were the equitable outworking of his evol-
ving, yet unevolved self.
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 but nettles from 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
there is just as simple and undeviating), and they, therefore
do not cooperate with it.
Suffering is always the effect of wrong thought in
some direction. It is an indication that the individual is
out of harmony with himself, with the Law of his being. The
sole and supreme use of suffering is to purify, to burn out
all that is useless and impure. Suffering ceases for him
who is pure. There could be no object in burning gold after
the dross had been removed, and a perfectly pure and enlight-
ened being could not suffer. (But would such a being be a
living being?? Would such a being be human? -David)
The circumstances which a man encounters with suffer-
ing are the result of his own mental inharmony. The cir-
cumstances which a man encounters with blessedness are the
result of his own mental harmony. Blessedness, not material
possessions, is the measure of right thought; wretchedness,
not lack of material possessions, is the measure of wrong
thought. A man may be cursed and rich; he may be blessed
and poor. Blessedness and riches are only joined together
when the riches are rightly and wisely used; and the poor
man only descends into wretchedness when he regards his lot
as a burden unjustly imposed.
Indigence and indulgence are the two extremes of
wretchedness. They are both equally unnatural and the
result of mental disorder. A man is not rightly condi-
tioned until he hs a happy, healthy, and prosperous being;
and happiness, health, and prosperity are the result of
harmonious adjustment of the inner with the outer, of
the man with his surroundings.
A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine
and revile, and commences to search for the hidden jus-
tice which regulates his life. And as he adapts his mind
to that regulating factor, he ceases to accuse others as
the cause of his condition, and builds himself up in strong
and noble thoughts; ceases to kick against circumstances,
begins to use them as aids to his more rapid progress,
and as a means of discovering the hidden powers and possi-
bilities within himself.