2. EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON CIRCUMSTANCES

A 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. 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 flaws of thought, and under- stands,
with ever-increasing accuracy, how the thought-forces and mind elements
operate in the shaping of 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.

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 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 it 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 circumstances 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 of 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 alms-house 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
and the shaper of and author of environment. Even at birth the soul comes
of 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.
Man is manacled only by himself; thought and action are the jailors of
Fate–they imprison, being base; they are also the angels of Freedom–they
liberate, being noble. Not what he wished 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 it 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 insufficieny of his wages. Such as man does not
understand the simplest rudiments of those principles which are the basis
of true prosperity, and is not only totally unfitted to to rise out of
his wretchedness, but is actually attracting to himseft 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 unatural 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 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 work-people. 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 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 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 supercial judgement, which assumes that the dishonest man us
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 reaps the good results of his honest
thoughts and acts; he also brings upon himself the sufferings which 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 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 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 enlightened being could not suffer.

The circumstances which a man encounters with suffering are the result
of his own mental inharmony. 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
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 beings 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. Righteousness, not corruption,
is the molding 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 weak, habits of uncleanliness and dishonesty, which solidify into
circum- stances 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 distressful
circumstances. 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 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 gratification of the thoughts which he most
encourages, and opportunities are presented which will most speedily bring
to the surface both the good and the 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 the 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 colors which at every succeeding moment
it presents to you are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever-moving
thoughts.

Next Chapter: EFFECTS OF THOUGHTS ON HEALTH AND BODY