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

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