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AS A PERSON THINKETH
Note:
What follows is a well known little volume,
"As A Man Thinketh", by James Allen.
It includes both the negative and the positive
consequences of thought.
It has been 'reinterpreted' by JLA
only in gender, since it is applicable and
valuable to both men and women.
Meditating on this work will enhance
your life inestimably.

THOUGHT AND CHARACTER

The aphorism, "As a person thinketh in their heart so are they," not only embraces the whole of a person's being, but it is so comprehensive as to reach out to every condition and circumstance of their life. A person is literally what they think, their character being the complete sum of all their thoughts.

As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a person 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 person garner in the sweet and bitter fruitage of their own husbandry.

"Thought in the mind hath made us,
What we are
By thought was wrought and built. If
a person's mind
Hath evil thoughts, pain comes on them
as comes
The wheel the ox behind...
...If a person endure
In purity of thought, joy follows them
As their own shadow--sure"

A person 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 God-like character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with God-like thought. An ignoble and bestial character, by the same process, is the result of the continued harboring of groveling thoughts.

A person is made or unmade by themselves; in the armory of thought a person forges the weapons by which they destroy themselves; a person also fashions the tools with which they build for themselves heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace. By the right choice and true application of thought, a person ascends to the Divine Perfection; by the abuse and wrong application of thought, a person descends below the level of the beast. Between thoughts, tracing their effects upon themselves, upon others, and upon their own life and circumstances, linking cause and effect by patient practice and investigation, and utilizing their every experience, even to the most trivial, everyday occurrence, as a means of obtaining that knowledge of themselves 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 person enter the Door of the Temple of Knowledge.

EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON CIRCUMSTANCES

A person'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 a plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which are required, so may a person tend the garden of their 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 person sooner or later discovers that they are the master-gardener of their soul, the director of their life. A person also reveals, within themselves, the laws of thought, and understands, with ever-increasing accuracy, how the thought-forces and mind-elements operate in the shaping of their 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 their inner state. This does not mean that a person's circumstances at any given time are an indication of their entire character, but that those circumstances are so intimately connected with some vital thought- element within them that, for the time being, they are indispensable to their development.

Every person is where they are by the law of their being; the thoughts which they have built into their character have brought them there, and in the arrangement of their 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 those who are contented with them.

As a progressive and evolving being, a person is where they are that they may learn that they may grow; and as they learn the spiritual lesson which any circumstance contains for them, it passes away and gives place to other circumstances. A person is buffeted by circumstances so long as they believe themselves to be the creature of outside conditions, but when they realize that they are a creative power, and that they may command the hidden soil and seeds of which circumstances grow, they then become the rightful master of themselves.

That circumstances grow out of thought every person knows who has for any length of time practiced self-control and self-purification, for they will have noticed that the alteration in their circumstances has been in exact ratio with their altered mental condition. So true is this that when a person earnestly applies themselves to remedy the defects in their character, and makes swift and marked progress, they pass 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 it 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 their own harvest, a person learns both by suffering and bliss.

Following the inmost desires, aspirations, thoughts, by which a person allows themselves to be dominated (pursuing the will-o'-the-wisps of pure imaginings or steadfastly walking the highway of strong and high endeavor), a person at last arrives at their fruition and fulfillment in the outer conditions of their life. The laws of growth and adjustment everywhere obtain.

A person does not come to the pot-house or the goal by the tyranny of fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of groveling thoughts and base desires. Nor does a pure-minded person fall suddenly into crime by stress of any mere external force; the criminal thought has long been secretly fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its gathered power. Circumstance does not make the person; it reveals the person to themselves. 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 a person, therefore, as the lord and master of thought, is the maker of themselves, 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.

A person does 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. A person is manacled only by themselves: thought and action are the goalers of Fate--they imprison, being base; they are also the angels of Freedom--they liberate, being noble. Not what a person wishes and prays for do they get, but what they justly earn. A person's wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with the person's thoughts and actions.

In the light of this truth, what, then, is the meaning of "fighting against circumstances"? It means that a person is continually revolting against an effect without, while all the time they are nourishing and preserving its cause in their 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.

Persons are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound. A person who does not shrink from self-crucifixion can never fail to accomplish the object upon which their heart is set. This is as true of earthly as of heavenly things. Even the person whose sole object is to acquire wealth must be prepared to make great personal sacrifices before they can accomplish their object; and how much more so a person who would realize a strong and well-poised life?

Here is a person who is wretchedly poor. The person is extremely anxious that their surroundings and home comforts should be improved, yet all the time they shirk their work, and considers themselves justified in trying to deceive their employer on the ground of the insufficiency of their wages. Such a person 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 their wretchedness, but is actually attracting to themselves a still deeper wretchedness by dwelling in, and acting out, indolent, deceptive, and ungallant thoughts.

Here is a rich person who is the victim of a painful and persistent disease as the result of gluttony. This person is willing to give large sums of money to get rid of it, but they will not sacrifice their gluttonous desires. They want to gratify their taste for rich and unnatural viands and have their health as well. Such a person is totally unfit to have health, because they have 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 work-people. Such a person is altogether unfitted for prosperity, and when they find themselves bankrupt, both as regards reputation and riches, they blame circumstances, not knowing that they are the sole author of their condition.

I have introduced these three cases merely as illustrative of the truth that a person is the causer (though nearly always unconsciously) of their circumstances, and that, whilst aiming at a good end, they are 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 they so desire, trace the action of the laws of thought in their 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 person's entire soul condition (although it may be known to themselves) cannot be judged by another from the external aspect of the persons life alone. A person may be honest in certain directions, yet suffer privations; a person may be dishonest in certain directions, yet acquire wealth; but the conclusion usually formed that the one person fails because of their particular honesty, and that the other prospers because of their particular dishonesty, is the result of a superficial judgment, which assumes that the dishonest person is almost totally corrupt, and the honest person almost entirely virtuous. In the light of a deeper knowledge and wider experience, such judgment is found to be erroneous. The dishonest person may have some admirable virtues which the other does not possess; and the honest person obnoxious vices which are absent in the other. The honest person reaps the good results of their honest thoughts and acts; they also bring upon themselves the sufferings which their vices produce. The dishonest person likewise garners their own suffering and happiness.

It is pleasing to human vanity to believe that one suffers because of one's virtue; but not until a person has extirpated every sickly, bitter, and impure thought from their mind, and washed every sinful stain from their soul, can they be in a position to know and declare that their sufferings are the result of their good, and not of their bad qualities; and on the way to, yet long before they have reached, that supreme perfection, they will have found, working in their 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, they will then know, looking back upon their past ignorance and blindness, that their life is, and always was, justly ordered, and that all their past experiences, good and bad, were the equitable outworking of their 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. People 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 themselves, with the Law of their being. The sole and supreme use of suffering is to purify, to burn out all that is useless and impure. Suffering ceases for a person who is pure. There could be no object in burning gold after the dross had been removed, and a perfectly pure and enlightened being could not suffer.

The circumstances which a person encounters with suffering are the result of their own mental inharmony. The circumstances which a person encounters with blessedness are the result of their 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 person 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 person 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 person with their surroundings.

A person only begins to be a person when they cease to whine and revile, and commence to search for the hidden justice which regulates their life. And as such a person adapts their mind to that regulating factor, they cease to accuse others as the cause of their condition, and build themselves up in strong and noble thoughts; cease to kick against circumstances, but begin to use them as aids to their more rapid progress, and as a means of discovering the hidden powers and possibilities within themselves.

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 molding and moving force in the spiritual government of the world. This being so, a person has but to right themselves to find that the universe is right; and during the process of putting themselves right, they will find that as they alter their thoughts toward things and other people, things and other people will alter towards them.

The proof of this truth is in every person, and it therefore admits of easy investigation by systematic introspection and self-analysis. Let a person radically alter their thoughts, and they will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will effect in the material conditions of their life. People 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, ungallant, 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 gallant 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 person cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.

Nature helps every person to the gratification of the thoughts which they most encourage, and opportunities are presented which will most speedily bring to the surface both the good and evil thoughts.

Let a person cease from their sinful thoughts, and all the world will soften towards them, and be ready to help them; let a person put away their weakly and sickly thoughts, and lo! opportunities will spring up on every hand to aid their strong resolves; let a person encourage good thoughts, and no hard fate shall bind them down to wretchedness and shame. The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of colors which at every succeeding moment it presents to you are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever-moving thoughts.

"You will be what you will to be;
Let failure find its false content
In that poor world, 'environment,'
But spirit scorns it, and is free.

"It masters time, it conquers space;
It cows 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 delay,
But wait as one who understands;
When spirit rises and commands,
The gods are ready to obey."

EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON
HEALTH AND THE BODY

The 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.

Disease and health, like circumstances, are rooted in thought. Sickly thoughts will express themselves through a sickly body. Thoughts of fear have been known to kill a person as speedily as a bullet, and they are continually killing thousands of people just as surely though less rapidly. The people who live in fear of disease are the people who get it. Anxiety quickly demoralizes the whole body, and lays it open to the entrance of disease; while impure thoughts, even if not physically indulged, will soon shatter the nervous system.

Strong, pure, and happy thoughts build up the body in vigor 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.

A person 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 person who will not change their thoughts. When a person makes their thoughts pure, they no longer desire impure food.

Clean thoughts make clean habits. The so-called saint who does not wash their body is not a saint. A person who has strengthened and purified their thoughts does not need to consider the malevolent microbe.

If you would perfect 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, pride.

I know a person of ninety-six who has the bright, innocent face of a youth. I know a person 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 their death-bed. They were not old except in years. They died as sweetly and peacefully as they 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

Until thought is liked 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 the person who would steer clear of catastrophe and destruction.

They who have no central purpose in their life fall easy prey to petty worries, fears, troubles, and self-pityings, all of which are indications of weakness, which lead, just a surely as deliberately planned sins (though by a different route), to failure, unhappiness, and loss, for weakness cannot persist in a power-evolving universe.

A person should conceive of a legitimate purpose in their heart, and set out to accomplish it. They should make this purpose the centralizing point of their thoughts. It may take the form of a spiritual ideal, or it may be a worldly object according to their nature at the time being; but whatever it is, they should steadily focus their thought-forces upon the object which they have set before them. They should make this purpose their supreme duty, and should devote themselves to its attainment, not allowing their thoughts to wander away into ephemeral fancies, longings, and imaginings. This is the royal road to self-control and true concentration of thought. Even is the person fails again and again to accomplish their purpose (as they necessarily must until weakness is overcome), the strength of character gained will be the measure of their true success, and this will form a new starting-point for future power and triumph.

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 person can make themselves strong by careful and patient training, so the person of weak thoughts can make themselves strong by exercising themselves in right thinking.

To put away aimlessness and weakness, and to begin to think with purpose, is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment; who make all conditions serve them, and who think strongly, attempt fearlessly, and accomplish masterfully.

Having conceived of their purpose, a person should mentally mark out a straight pathway to its achievement, looking neither to the right nor the left. Doubts and fears should be rigorously excluded; they are disintegrating elements which break up the straight line of effort, rendering it crooked, ineffectual, useless. Thoughts of doubt and fear never accomplish anything, and never can. They always lead to failure. Purpose, energy, power to do, and all strong thoughts cease when doubt and fear creep in.

The will to do springs from the knowledge that we can do. Doubt and fear are the great enemies of knowledge, and the person who encourages them, who does not slay them, thwarts themselves at every step.

The person who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure. That person's every thought is allied with power, and all difficulties are bravely met and wisely overcome. That person's purposes are seasonably planted, and they bloom and bring forth fruit which does not fall prematurely to the ground.

Thought allied fearlessly to purpose becomes creative force: the person who knows this is ready to become something higher and stronger than a mere bundle of wavering thoughts and fluctuating sensations; the person who does this has become the conscious and intelligent wielder of their mental powers.

THE THOUGHT-FACTOR
IN ACHIEVEMENT

All that a person achieves and all that a person fails to achieve is the direct result of their own thoughts. In a justly ordered universe, where loss of equipoise would mean total destruction, individual responsibility must be absolute. A person's weakness and strength, purity and impurity, are their own, and not another person's; they are brought about by that person, and not by another; and they can only be altered by that person, never by another. A person's condition is their own, and not another person's. A person's suffering and their happiness are evolved from within. As a person thinks, so they are; as they continue to think, so they remain.

A strong person cannot help a weaker unless that weaker is willing to be helped, and even then the weak person must become strong of themselves; they must, by their own efforts, develop the strength which they admire in another. None but themselves can alter their condition.

It has been usual for a person to think and to say, "Many people are slaves because one is an oppressor; let us hate the oppressor." Now, however, there is amongst us an increasing few a tendency to reverse this judgment, and to say, "One person is an oppressor because many are slaves; let us despise the slaves." The truth is that oppressor and slave are co-operators 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.

The person who has conquered weakness, and has put away all selfish thoughts, belongs neither to oppressor nor oppressed. They are free.

A person can only rise, conquer, and achieve by lifting up their thoughts. A person can only remain weak, and abject, and miserable by refusing to lift up their thoughts.

Before a person can achieve anything, even in worldly things, they must lift their thoughts above slavish animal indulgence. A person may not, in order to succeed, give up all animality and selfishness, by any means; but a portion of it must, at least, be sacrificed. A person whose first thought is bestial indulgence could neither think clearly nor plan methodically; they could not find and develop their latent resources, and would fail in any undertaking. Not having commenced to heroically control their thoughts, they are not in a position to control affairs and to adopt serious responsibilities. They are not fit to act independently and stand alone. But a person is limited only by the thoughts which that person chooses.

There can be no progress, no achievement without sacrifice, and a person's worldly success will be in the measure that they sacrifice their confused animal thoughts, and fix their mind on the development of their plans, and the strengthening of their resolution and self-reliance. And the higher the person lifts their thoughts, the more heroic, upright, and righteous the person becomes, the greater will be their success, the more blessed and enduring will be their achievements.

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 person has but to persist in making themselves more and more virtuous by lifting up their thoughts.

Intellectual achievements are the result of thought consecrated to the search for knowledge, or for the beautiful and true in life and nature. Such achievements may be sometimes 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. A person who lives constantly in the conception of noble and lofty thoughts, who dwells upon all that is pure and unselfish, 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 whatever kind, is the crown of effort, the diadem of thought. By the aid of self-control, resolution, purity, righteousness, and well-directed thought a person ascends; by the aid of animality, indolence, impurity, corruption, and confusion of thought a person descends.

A person 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 them.

Victories attained by right thought can only be maintained 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, are governed by the same law and are of the same method; the only difference lies in the object of attainment.

A person who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; a person who would achieve much must sacrifice much; a person who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.

VISIONS AND IDEALS

The Dreamers are the saviors of the world. As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so people, 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.

The person who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in their 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 environments; 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 a person'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 of things 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 the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.

Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long remain so if you but 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 that youth dreams of better things; thinks of intelligence, of refinement, of grace and beauty. The youth conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal condition of life; the vision of a wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of the youth; unrest urges to action, and the youth utilizes all spare time and means, small though they are, to the development of latent powers and resources. Very soon so altered has that mind become that the workshop can no longer hold the youth. It has become so out of harmony with with its mentality that it falls out of the youth's life as a garment is cast aside, and, with the growth of opportunities which fit the scope of its expanding powers, the youth passes out of it forever. Years later we see this youth as a full-grown person. We find the person a master of certain forces of the mind which they wield with world-wide influence and almost unequalled power. In this person's hands are held the cords of gigantic responsibilities; they speak, and lo! lives are changed; men and women hang upon the person's every word and remold their characters, and, sunlike, this person becomes the fixed and luminous center round which innumerable destinies revolve. This person has realized the vision of its youth. This person has become one with its Ideal.

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 place 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 a 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 inkstains on your fingers...and then and there shall pour out the torrent of your inspiration. You shall 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 they 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 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 person grow rich, they say, "How lucky they are!" Observing another become intellectual, they exclaim, "How highly favored they are!" And noting the saintly character and wide influence of another, they remark, "How chance aids them at every turn!" They do not see the trials and failures and struggles which these people 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"; 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

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 person becomes calm in the measure that they understand themselves as a thought-evolved being, for such knowledge necessitates the understanding of others as the result of thought, then the person develops a right understanding, and sees more and more clearly the internal relations of things by the action of cause and effect, they cease to fuss and fume and worry and grieve, and remain poised, steadfast, serene.

The calm person, having learned how to govern oneself, knows how to adapt to others; and others, in turn reverence the person's spiritual strength, and feel that they can learn of the person and rely on them. The more tranquil a person becomes, the greater is their success, their influence, their power for good. Even the ordinary trader will find their business prosperity increase as they develop a greater self-control and equanimity, for people will always prefer to deal with a person whose demeanor is strongly equable.

The strong, calm person is always loved and revered. They are 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; it is the flowering of life, 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!"

Yes, humanity surges with uncontrolled passion, is tumultuous with ungoverned grief, is blown about by anxiety and doubt. Only the wise person, only the person whose thoughts are controlled and purified, makes the winds and the storms of the soul obey them.

Tempest-tossed souls, wherever ye may be, under whatsoever conditions ye 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 hand firmly upon the helm of thought. In the bark of your soul reclines the commanding Master. The Master does but sleep: wake it.

Self-control is strength; Right Thought is mastery; Calmness is power. Say unto your heart,
"Peace, be still!"

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