"Allen, James - As a Man Thinketh" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen James)

And utilizing his every experience, even the most trivial,
everyday occurrence, as a means of obtaining that knowledge of
himself which is understanding, wisdom, power. In this direction
is the law of 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
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,