thoughts, tracing their effects upon himself, upon others, and upon
his life and circumstances, linking cause and effect by patient
practice and investigation, and utilizing his every experience, even
to the most trivial, everyday occurrence, as a means of obtaining
that knowledge of himself 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 man
enter the Door of the Temple of Knowledge.
EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON CIRCUMSTANCES
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 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.
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 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
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