A man cannot
cling to anything unless he believes in it;
belief always
precedes action,
therefore a
man’s deeds and life are the fruits of his belief.
There are only
two beliefs which vitally affect the life,
and they are:
belief in good and belief in evil.
As the fruit to the tree
and the water to the spring, so is action to thought.
All sin and
temptation are the natural outcome
of the thoughts
of the individual.
Guard well your
thoughts, reader, for what you really are
in your secret
thoughts today you will become in actual deed.
A man can only attract
that to him which is in harmony with his nature.
As a being of
thought, your dominant mental
attitude will
determine your condition in life.
The boundary lines of
your thoughts are self-erected fences.
“How am I acting towards
others?”
“What am I doing to others?”
“How am I thinking of others?”
“Are my thoughts of, and acts towards others prompted by unselfish love?”
“What am I doing to others?”
“How am I thinking of others?”
“Are my thoughts of, and acts towards others prompted by unselfish love?”
As a man, in the silence
of his soul, asks himself these searching questions, he will unerringly see
where he has hitherto failed.
Pain, grief, sorrow, and
misery are the fruits of which passion is the flower.
The Supreme Justice and
the Supreme Love are one.
The history of a nation
is the building of its deeds.
By the aid of
millions of bricks a city is built;
by the aid of
millions of thoughts a character, a mind, is built.
Every man is a
mind-builder.
“Build thee more stately mansions,
O my soul, As the swift seasons roll.”
Each man is the builder
of himself.
The teaching of Jesus
brings men back to the simple truth that righteousness, or right-doing, is entirely a matter of individual conduct, and not a
mystical something apart from a man’s thoughts and deeds.
Calmness and patience can
become habitual by first grasping, through effort, a calm and patient thought,
and then continuously thinking it, and living in it, until “use becomes second
nature,” and anger and impatience pass away for ever.
Build like a true
workman.
Working in harmony with
the fundamental laws of the universe.
Whatsoever you harbour in
the inmost chambers of your heart will, sooner or later, by the inevitable law
of reaction, shape itself in your outward life.
Every soul attracts its
own, and nothing can possibly come to it that does not belong to it. To realize
this is to recognize the universality of Divine Law.
If thou would’st right
the world, and banish all its evils and its woes, make its wild places bloom,
and its drear deserts blossom as the rose—then right thyself.
It is a common
error to suppose that little things can be passed by,
and that the
greater things are more important.
He who would
have a life secure and blessed must carry
the practice of
the moral principles into every detail of it.
When aspiration is
united to concentration, the result is meditation.
Meditation is necessary
to spiritual success.
When a man
aspires to know and realize the Truth,
he gives
attention to conduct, to self-purification.
Love Truth so fully and
intensely as to become wholly absorbed in it.
The object of meditation
is divine enlightenment.
The principle of meditation is twofold, namely:
1. Purification of the
heart by repetitive thought on pure things.
2. Attainment of
divine knowledge by embodying such purity in practical life.
Man is a thought-being,
and his life and character are
determined by
the thoughts in which he habitually dwells.
By practice,
association, and habit, thoughts tend to repeat themselves.
It is easy to mistake
reverie for meditation.
Selfishness,
the root of the tree of evil and of all suffering,
derives its
Nourishment from the dark soil of ignorance.
Each individual suffers
by virtue of his own selfishness.
If men only understood
that their hatred and resentment slays their peace and sweet contentment, hurts
themselves, helps not another, does not cheer one lonely brother, they would
seek the better doing of good deeds which leaves no ruing:—
If they only understood.
If men only understood how
Love conquers; how prevailing is its might, grim hate assailing; how compassion
endeth sorrow, maketh wise, and doth not borrow pain of passion, they would
ever live in Love, in hatred never:—
If they only understood.
The spirit is
strengthened and renewed by meditation upon spiritual things.
The lamp of faith must
be continually fed and assiduously trimmed.
The loss of
today will add to the gain of tomorrow
for him whose
mind is set on the conquest of self.
Learn to
distinguish between the real and the unreal,
the shadow and
the substance.
Acquire the priceless
possession of spiritual discernment.
Stand upon the
divine Principles
of Purity,
Wisdom, Compassion, and Love.
Find the Divine Center
within.
Not to know
that within you that is changeless,
and defiant of
time and death,
is not to know
anything, but is to play vainly
with unsubstantial
reflections in the Mirror of Time.
I say this—and know it to
be truth—that circumstances can only
affect you in so far as you allow them to do so. You are swayed by
circumstances because you have not a right understanding of the nature, use, and
power of thought. You believe (and upon this little word belief hang all our joys and sorrows) that outward things have the
power to make or mar your life; by so doing you submit to those outward things,
confess that you are their slave, and they your unconditional master. By so
doing you invest them with a power which they do not of themselves possess, and
you succumb, in reality not to the circumstances, but to the gloom or gladness,
the fear or hope, the strength of weakness, which your thought-sphere has
thrown around them.
Having betaken
himself to the Divine Refuge within,
and remaining
there, a man is free from sin.
No doubt shall
shake his trust, no uncertainty shall rob him of repose.
Where self is not, there
is the Garden of the Heavenly Life.
Life is more
than motion, it is Music; more than rest, it is Peace;
more than work,
it is Duty; more than labor, it is Love.
Life is more than
enjoyment, it is Blessedness.
He who would find Blessedness,
let him find himself.
The spiritual Heart of
man is the Heart of the universe.
All power, all
possibility, all action is now.
WHILST a man is dwelling upon the past or future he is missing the
present; he is forgetting to live now. All things are possible now, and only now. Without wisdom to guide him,
and mistaking the unreal for the real, a man says, “If I had done so-and-so
last week, last month, or last year, it would have been better with me today”;
or, “I know what is best to be done, and I will do it tomorrow.” The selfish
cannot comprehend the vast importance and value of the present, and fail to see
it as the substantial reality of which past and future are the empty
reflections. It may truly be said that past and future do not exist except as
negative shadows, and to live in them—that is, in the regretful and selfish
contemplation of them—is to miss the reality in life.
To put away
regret, to anchor anticipation,
to do and work
now, this is wisdom.
Virtue consists in
fighting sin day after day.
Holiness
consists in leaving sin,
unnoticed and
ignored, to die by the wayside.
Say not unto
thy soul, “Thou shalt be purer tomorrow;
but rather say,
“Thou shalt be pure now.”
Thou shalt not
rise by grieving over the irremediable past,
but by remedying
the present.
Looking back to
happy beginnings, and forward to mournful endings,
a man’s eyes are
blinded so that he beholds not his own immortality.
The universe, with all
that it contains, is now.
Let a man put
away egotism, and he will see the universe
in all the
beauty of its pristine simplicity.
When a man succeeds
in entirely forgetting (annihilating)
his personal
self, he becomes a mirror in which
the universal
Reality is faultlessly reflected.
In the perfect
chord of music the single note, though forgotten,
is
indispensably contained, and the drop of water
becomes of
supreme usefulness by losing itself in the ocean.
Cease to speculate about
God, and find the all-embracing Good within thee.
The pure man knows
himself as pure being.
Purity is extremely
simple, and needs no argument to support it.
Under all circumstances do that which you believe to be right,
and trust the Law; trust the Divine Power which is immanent in the universe,
and it will never desert you, and you will always be protected.
Truth lives itself.
A blameless life is the
only witness of Truth.
He who has
found the indwelling Reality of his own being
has found the
original and universal Reality.
So extremely
simple is Original Simplicity
that a man
must let go his hold of everything
before he can
perceive it.
Great will be
his pain and unrest who seeks
to stand upon
the approbation of others.
To love where
one is not loved;
herein lies the
strength which shall never fail a man.
 |
|
James Allen
(1864 – 1912)
|
No comments:
Post a Comment