**Thought and Character**
The aphorism, ‘As a man thinketh in his heart so is he,’ not only embraces the whole of a man’s being, but is so comprehensive as to reach out to every condition and circumstance of his life. A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts. As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them. This applies equally to those acts called “spontaneous” and “unpremeditated” as to those which are deliberately executed. Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits, thus does a man garner in the sweet and bitter fruitage of his own husbandry. Man is a growth by law, and not a creation by artifice, and cause and effect is as absolute and undeviating in the hidden realm of thought as in the world of visible and material things. A noble and Godlike character is not a thing of favor or chance, but in the natural result of continuous effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with Godlike thoughts.
An ignoble and bestial character, by the same process, is the result of the continued harboring of groveling thoughts. Man is made or unmade by himself; in the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace. By the right choice and true application of thought, man ascends to the Divine Perfection, by the abuse and wrong application of thought, he descends to the level of the beast. Between these two extremes all the grades of character, and man is their maker and master. Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul which have been restored and brought to light in this age, none is more gladdening or fruitful of divine promise and confidence than this – that man is the master of thought, the modeler of character, and maker and shape of condition, environment, and destiny. As a being of Power, Intelligence, and Love, and the Lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make himself what he wills.
Man is always the master, even in his weakest and most abandoned state, but in his weakness and degradation he is the foolish master who misgoverns his household. When he begins to reflect upon his condition, and to search diligently for the Law upon which his being is established, he then becomes a wise master, directing his energies with intelligence, and fashioning his thoughts to fruitful issues. Such is the conscious master, and man can only thus become by discovering within himself the laws of thought, which discovery is totally a matter of application, self-analysis, and experience. Only by such searching and mining are gold an diamonds obtained, and man can find every truth connected with his being if he will dig deep into the mine of his soul, and that he is the maker of his character, the molderm
**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 garden cultivates its 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. Thus is just as true of those who feel “out of harmony” with their surroundings as of those who are contented with them.
As the 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, 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 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 circumstances. Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit. The outer world of circumstance shapes itself into 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 wisest desires, aspirations, thoughts, by which he allows himself to be dominated (pursuing the will-o’-the-wisp of impure imagining or steadfastly walking the highway of strong and high endeavor), a man at last arrives at the fruition and fulfillment in the outer condition of his life. The laws of growth and adjustment everywhere obtain. A man does not come to the almshouse or the jail by the tyranny of fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of groveling 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 in 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, is the lord and master of thought, is the maker of himself, the shaper and author of environment.
Even at birth the soul comes to 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 innermost 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 Self. Man is also the only gods of himself. 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 he wishes for 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 revolting against an *effect* without, while all the time he is nourishing and preserving its cause in his heart. That cause may take the form of a conscious vice or an unconscious weakness; but whatever it is, it stubbornly retards the efforts of its possessor, and thus calls aloud for remedy. Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound. The man who does not shrink from self-crucifixion can never fail to accomplish the object upon which his wealth is set. This is as true of earthly as of heavenly things. Even the man whose sole object is to acquire wealth must be prepared to make great personal sacrifices before he can accomplish his object; and how much more so he who would realize a strong and well-poised life? Here is a man who is wretchedly poor. He is extremely anxious that his surroundings and home comforts should be improved, yet all the time he sharks his work, and considers he is justified in trying to deceive his employer on the ground of the insufficiency of his wages.
Such a man does not understand the simplest rudiments of those principles which are the basis of true prosperity, and is not only totally unfitted to rise out of his wretchedness, but is actually attracting to himself a still deeper wretchedness by dwelling in, and acting out, indolent, deceptive, and unmanly thoughts. Here is a rich man who is the victim of a painful and persistent disease as the result of gluttony. He is willing to give large sums of money to get rid of it, but he will not sacrifice his gluttonous desires. He wants to gratify his taste for rich and unnatural viands and have his health as well. Such a man is totally unfit to have health, because he has not yet learned the first principles of a healthy life. …the molderm As were all of my classmates. What struck Mike was that rising to the occasion had almost nothing.