As one thinketh
continuation from November-December Issue
That circumtances grow out of thought everyone knows who has for any length of time practiced self-discipline and self-purification, for they will have noticed and realized that the alteration in circumtances has been in exact ratio with their altered mental condition. So true is this that when one earnestly endeavours to remedy the defects in their character, and makes swift and marked progress, they pass rapidlythrough the succession of the benifits.
The soul attracts that which it secretly harbours; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height if its noblest cherished aspirations; it also falls to the level of its unchartered desires and circumtances are the means by which the soul receives its own.
Every thought-seed sown or allowed to enter into the mind and to take root there, produce its own, blossoming sooner or later into act and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear 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 improvement of the individual. As the reaper of one’s own harvest, one learns both by suffering and joy.
Following the inner most desires, aspirations and thoughts, by which one allows to be dominated, one at last arrives at their fruition and fulfillment of the outer conditions in life. The laws of growth and adjustment are everywhere at one’s disposal.
One does not come to be imprisoned only by the tyranny of fate or cicumstance, but by the pathway of grovelling thoughts, actions and base desires. Nor does a pure minded one 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 one it reveals to ourselves. No such condition can exist as descending into vice and its attendant sufferings apart from unsavoury inclinations, or ascending into virtue and its pure happiness without the continued cultivation of virtous aspirations; and one, therefore, as the Lord and master of their thoughts, is the author and shaper of their environment. Perhaps even at birth the soul comes to its own, and through every step of its earthly pilgrimage it creates conditions which reveal itself, which are the reflections of its own purity and impurity, its strength and weakness.
One does not attract that which they want, but that which they are. Their whims, fancies and ambitions are thwarted at every step, as 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 oneself: thought and action are the jailers of fate they imprison, being base; they are also the angels of freedom they liberate, being noble, not what one wishes and prays for does one get, but what is justly earned. Our wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with our thoughts and actions.
In the light of this truth, what, then, is the meaning of “fighting against circumstances?’ It means that one is continually rebelling against outside effects while still nourishing and preserving its cause in their heart.
Source: As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
