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Chapter 2 -- The Effect On Thought and Circumstance
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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.
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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.
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.
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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
harbours; 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
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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.
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 ultimate 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 endeavour), a man at last arrives at their fruition and fulfilment in the outer conditions
of his life. The laws of growth and adjustment everywhere obtains.
A man does not come to the almshouse 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 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.
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 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 he is justified in
trying to deceive 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 basis 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 labour 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 illustrative of the truth that man is the cause
(though nearly always is unconsciously) of his circumstances, and that, whilst 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 (although 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 suffer 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 a 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 judgment 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 reapsthe 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 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
knowledge, 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 evolving, 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 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.
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 enlightened being could not suffer.
The circumstances, which a man encounters with suffering, are the result of his own mental in
harmony. The circumstances, 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 conditioned until he is a happy, healthy,
and prosperous being; and happiness, health, and prosperity are the result of a 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 justice 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, but begins to use them as aids to his more rapid
progress, and as a means of discovering the hidden powers and possibilities within himself.
Law, not confusion, is the dominating principle in the universe; justice, not injustice, is the soul
and substance of life; and righteousness, not corruption, is the moulding and moving force in the
spiritual government of the world. This being so, man has but to right himself to find that the
universe is right; and during the process of putting himself right he will find that as he alters his
thoughts towards things and other people, things and other people will alter towards him.
The proof of this truth is in every person, and it therefore admits of easy investigation by
systematic introspection and self-analysis. Let a man radically alter his thoughts, and he will be
astonished at the rapid transformation it will effect in the material conditions of his life. Men
imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit
solidifies into circumstance. Bestial thoughts crystallize into habits of drunkenness and
sensuality, which solidify into circumstances of destitution and disease: impure thoughts of every
kind crystallize into enervating and confusing habits, which solidify into distracting and adverse
circumstances: thoughts of fear, doubt, and indecision crystallize into weak, unmanly, and
irresolute habits, which solidify into circumstances of failure, indigence, and slavish dependence:
lazy thoughts crystallize into habits of uncleanliness and dishonesty, which solidify into
circumstances of foulness and beggary: hateful and condemnatory thoughts crystallize into habits
of accusation and violence, which solidify into circumstances of injury and persecution: selfish
thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of self-seeking, which solidify into circumstances more
or less distressing. On the other hand, beautiful thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of
grace and kindliness, which solidify into genial and sunny circumstances: pure thoughts
crystallize into habits of temperance and self-control, which solidify into circumstances of repose
and peace: thoughts of courage, self-reliance, and decision crystallize into manly habits, which
solidify into circumstances of success, plenty, and freedom: energetic thoughts crystallize into
habits of cleanliness and industry, which solidify into circumstances of pleasantness: gentle and
forgiving thoughts crystallize into habits of gentleness, which solidify into protective and
preservative circumstances: loving and unselfish thoughts crystallize into habits of
self-forgetfulness for others, which solidify into circumstances of sure and abiding prosperity and
true riches.
A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on
the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can
choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.
Nature helps every man to the gratification of the thoughts, which he most encourages, and
opportunities are presented which will most speedily bring to the surface both the good and evil
thoughts.
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.
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"So You will be what you will to be;
Let failure find its false content
In that poor word, 'environment,'
But spirit scorns it, and is free.
"It masters time, it conquers space;
It cowes that boastful trickster, Chance,
And bids the tyrant Circumstance
Uncrown, and fill a servant's place.
"The human Will, that force unseen,
The offspring of a deathless Soul,
Can hew a way to any goal,
Though walls of granite intervene.
"Be not impatient in delays
But wait as one who understands;
When spirit rises and commands
The gods are ready to obey."
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Thought and Character | Effect on Thought and Circumstances | Effect of Thought On Health and the Body
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