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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.
There are two types of beliefs. There conscious, and subconscious beliefs. Most people can easily discover their conscious limiting beliefs. It takes some deeper thinking and reflection to discover the beliefs that may be in the subconscious. Many people do not realize that they are living through their parent’s belief systems. Your parents may have accepted their beliefs from their parents so on and so for. Limiting beliefs that you may hold may be centuries old. One man was perplexed about his financial situation. There seemed to be a force that was preventing him from achieving his financial goals. Every time he tried to improve his financial situation something always came up. We later found that he had been living in his father’s belief system about money. His father lived in the scarcity mindset and his environment inevitably reflected his mentality. Once this student became conscious of the subconscious he was able to choose a new belief and make significantly more money.
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.
Show me a mans environment and I will show you his thoughts.
-Adam Mortimer
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.
Are you in harmony or out of harmony with your environment? This will reveal to you the beliefs within you that are empowering and disempowering.
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.
Accepting that you are totally responsible for where you are at in life is a great step towards personal development. It may not be the most comfortable thing to do, but the honest and humble of heart will learn this spiritual lesson and continually grow.
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.
Man may command the hidden soil and seeds of his being out of which circumstances grow. This is one of the most powerful God given gifts. The unsuccessful person is a slave to circumstances. The successful person makes circumstances his slave. True empowerment comes from knowing that you are in control of your life and your destiny.
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.
Think back on your life when you have worked on becoming a better person. Think of your circumstances during those times. Did your circumstances line up with your thoughts? Think of when your thoughts have been disempowering and notice how your circumstances lined up with that way of thinking as well.
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.
One of the ways of discovering what you are bringing into your life is through the emotions that you feel. Your emotions will reveal what you truly believe in your subconscious mind. Your emotions are what activate the unseen forces that bring what you desire into existence. What are the thoughts that you consistently dwell upon and mix with emotion? Are they visions of fear and worry, or are they visions of belief and faith? The beliefs that have the strongest emotions attached to them are on their way into your life, whether they be positive or negative.
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.
This is a great universal law. The seeds of thought that you put in your mind must unequivocally come back to you, that includes your actions. Actions speak more of who you are then anything you may say. Your actions show the world the thoughts you have been thinking.
“Ye shall know them by their fruits…” -Mathew 7:16
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.
There was once a man who needed a roof for his temple. He searched and searched for someone that would qualify for the job. There simply were no roofers around. All he found was a man that knew how to build ships. Then the man had an idea. He would have the ship maker build the roof for him. He pondered, if this man can build a water tight ship then why not a water tight roof. Do not the same principles in building a ship apply to building a water tight roof. He concluded that a roof is really just a ship upside down.
A wise man once said that you can oft times lean more from your failures than you can from your successses. If you have circumstances that you do not want in your life, turn your ship upside down.
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 obtains.
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 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 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.
“Thoughts are things.”
-Napoleon Hill
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. The “divinity that shapes our ends” is in ourselves; it is our very self. Only himself manacles man: thought and action are the gaolers of Fate—they imprison, being base; they are also the angels of Freedom—they liberate, being noble. Not what he wishes 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.
How can we use this knowledge to get what we want in life? We must become what we want to attract into our lives. If you want to have more spirituality in your environment, you must become spiritual. If you want more abundance, you must become that way first in the mind. If you want better health, then you must first become whole in the mind. You may be saying to yourself, how can I do this? How can I act that way when that is not who I am yet. As the saying goes, fake it till you make it. In other words, act as if you are that person until it becomes a habit of thought.
The story of the man who found an extra 4000 dollars a month illustrates this quite beautifully. There was a man that we will call Jared. Jared wanted to be wealthy. He wanted to generate extra income, and to eliminate all of his debts as quickly as possible.
His current belief system blinded him to money making opportunities. All he could see at the end of the month was 400 dollars to implement his debt elimination plan. He was talking to his wise friend about his goals and about the fact that his plans were moving painfully slow.
His friend, who had a wonderfully cultivated mind, asked him why not do 4000 dollars a month towards paying off your debts? This was a big shock to Jared’s current belief system, and he looked at his friend like he was crazy. Jared’s friend invited him to believe in the unbelievable. He told Jared to suspend all disbelief for at least three weeks. Jared agreed to this, and what happened next seemed like magic. Money making ideas began to flood Jared’s mind.
Within 12 weeks, Jared had found a way to accomplish his goal of making an extra 4000 dollars a month.
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.
Trying to change the outside world without changing the inside is like trying to pump up a tire by blowing air around it and not in it. You must focus on the root cause of the problem and not only its effects.
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 heart 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?
If I were to walk into a room and ask the class, “Who here desires prosperity?” Everyone would raise their hands. If I were to ask, who is willing to track their expenses everyday as well as their net worth? Who is willing to live on a budget? Who is willing to cultivate the millionaire mentality? Little by little hands would begin to drop. There are many that desire success in life but few are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to make it a reality.
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 shirks 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.
Without being brutally honest with yourself there can be no progress. Personal growth takes taking personal responsibility.
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.
Here is an employer of labor who adopts crooked measures to avoid paying the regulation wage, and, in the hope of making larger profits, reduces the wages of his workpeople. Such a man is altogether unfitted for prosperity, and when he finds himself bankrupt, both as regards reputation and riches, he blames circumstances, not knowing that he is the sole author of his condition.
I have introduced these three cases merely as illustrative of the truth that man is the causer (though nearly always is unconsciously) of his circumstances, and that, whilst aiming at a good end, he is continually frustrating its accomplishment by encouraging thoughts and desires which cannot possibly harmonize with that end. Such cases could be multiplied and varied almost indefinitely, but this is not necessary, as the reader can, if he so resolves, trace the action of the laws of thought in his own mind and life, and until this is done, mere external facts cannot serve as a ground of reasoning.
Circumstances, however, are so complicated, thought is so deeply rooted, and the conditions of happiness vary so, vastly with individuals, that a man’s entire soul-condition (although it may be known to himself) cannot be judged by another from the external aspect of his life alone. A man may be honest in certain directions, yet suffer privations; a man may be dishonest in certain directions, yet acquire wealth; but the conclusion usually formed that the one man fails because of his particular honesty, and that the other prospers because of his particular dishonesty, is the result of a superficial judgment, which assumes that the dishonest man is almost totally corrupt, and the honest man almost entirely virtuous. In the light of a deeper knowledge and wider experience such judgment is found to be erroneous. The dishonest man may have some admirable virtues, which the other does, not possess; and the honest man obnoxious vices which are absent in the other. The honest man reaps the good results of his honest thoughts and acts; he also brings upon himself the sufferings, which his vices produce. The dishonest man likewise garners his own suffering and happiness.
We tend to overly simplify the cause and effect of circumstances when judging the lives of others. We cannot justly judge another because we do not know all the complexities of the thoughts that they have thought to bring about their circumstances. We cannot assume that because someone is rich they are good or bad. There is so much more to it. As James states, there may be good qualities in one and vices in the other that we may not be aware of.
It is pleasing to human vanity to believe that one suffers because of one’s virtue; but not until a man has extirpated every sickly, bitter, and impure thought from his mind, and washed every sinful stain from his soul, can he be in a position to know and declare that his sufferings are the result of his good, and not of his bad qualities; and on the way to, yet long before he has reached, that supreme perfection, he will have found, working in his mind and life, the Great Law which is absolutely just, and which cannot, therefore, give good for evil, evil for good. Possessed of such knowledge, he will then know, looking back upon his past ignorance and blindness, that his life is, and always was, justly ordered, and that all his past experiences, good and bad, were the equitable outworking of his evolving, yet unevolved self.
Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results. This is but saying that nothing can come from corn but corn, nothing from nettles but nettles. Men understand this law in the natural world, and work with it; but few understand it in the mental and moral world (though its operation there is just as simple and undeviating), and they, therefore, do not co-operate with it.
Suffering cannot and will not come from good thinking. It would go against the law of the harvest. What you send out there must come back to you. There is an order to the universe and laws that cannot be broken.
Suffering is always the effect of wrong thought in some direction. It is an indication that the individual is out of harmony with himself, with the Law of his being. The sole and supreme use of suffering is to purify, to burn out all that is useless and impure. Suffering ceases for him who is pure. There could be no object in burning gold after the dross had been removed, and a perfectly pure and enlightened being could not suffer.
The circumstances, which a man encounters with suffering, are the result of his own mental in harmony. The circumstances, which a man encounters with blessedness, are the result of his own mental harmony. Blessedness, not material possessions, is the measure of right thought; wretchedness, not lack of material possessions, is the measure of wrong thought. A man may be cursed and rich; he may be blessed and poor. Blessedness and riches are only joined together when the riches are rightly and wisely used; and the poor man only descends into wretchedness when he regards his lot as a burden unjustly imposed.
Indigence and indulgence are the two extremes of wretchedness. They are both equally unnatural and the result of mental disorder. A man is not rightly conditioned until he is a happy, healthy, and prosperous being; and happiness, health, and prosperity are the result of a harmonious adjustment of the inner with the outer, of the man with his surroundings.
A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine and revile, and commences to search for the hidden justice which regulates his life. And as he adapts his mind to that regulating factor, he ceases to accuse others as the cause of his condition, and builds himself up in strong and noble thoughts; ceases to kick against circumstances, but begins to use them as aids to his more rapid progress, and as a means of discovering the hidden powers and possibilities within himself.
A sign of maturity is taking responsibility for your life experience. One will not play the blame game or live as a Victim. When you choose to do something about your environment, then you are in a new state of empowerment.
Law, not confusion, is the dominating principle in the universe; justice, not injustice, is the soul and substance of life; and righteousness, not corruption, is the moulding and moving force in the spiritual government of the world. This being so, man has but to right himself to find that the universe is right; and during the process of putting himself right he will find that as he alters his thoughts towards things and other people, things and other people will alter towards him.
God is a God of order. There are natural laws and there are spiritual laws. These laws are in full force whether you accept it or not. Once you understand these laws you can use them to benefit. Just like a basic understanding of the law of gravity helps man to fly. Knowing these laws of the mind will allow you to live your life without limits.
Anything the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve.
-Napoleon Hill
The proof of this truth is in every person, and it therefore admits of easy investigation by systematic introspection and self-analysis. Let a man radically alter his thoughts, and he will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will effect in the material conditions of his life. Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance. Bestial thoughts crystallize into habits of drunkenness and sensuality, which solidify into circumstances of destitution and disease: impure thoughts of every kind crystallize into enervating and confusing habits, which solidify into distracting and adverse circumstances: thoughts of fear, doubt, and indecision crystallize into weak, unmanly, and irresolute habits, which solidify into circumstances of failure, indigence, and slavish dependence: lazy thoughts crystallize into habits of uncleanliness and dishonesty, which solidify into circumstances of foulness and beggary: hateful and condemnatory thoughts crystallize into habits of accusation and violence, which solidify into circumstances of injury and persecution: selfish thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of self-seeking, which solidify into circumstances more or less distressing. On the other hand, beautiful thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of grace and kindliness, which solidify into genial and sunny circumstances: pure thoughts crystallize into habits of temperance and self-control, which solidify into circumstances of repose and peace: thoughts of courage, self-reliance, and decision crystallize into manly habits, which solidify into circumstances of success, plenty, and freedom: energetic thoughts crystallize into habits of cleanliness and industry, which solidify into circumstances of pleasantness: gentle and forgiving thoughts crystallize into habits of gentleness, which solidify into protective and preservative circumstances: loving and unselfish thoughts crystallize into habits of self-forgetfulness for others, which solidify into circumstances of sure and abiding prosperity and true riches.
I am amazed at the people that have miraculously altered what they thought was their lot in their lives simply by altering their thoughts. In as little as 30 days you can alter your internal belief system. Chose a new circumstance that you would like to have. Suspend all your disbelief in what you would like to see happen in your life. Spend your time visualizing, feeling and acting as if you already are in possesion of what you would like to have. Believe it to the point that there is no doubt in your mind, this is called “the knowing”. You simply know that this is going to happen. Listen to the inspiration that you receive. It will guide you to the fulfillment of your desires. Do this for three to four weeks. You can also state affirmations that allign with the goal that you would like to receive.
A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.
This was explained to me by a spiritual leader when he said, “you can choose one end of the stick that you pick up, but once you have picked up one end you cannot choose the other end.” It will come to pass wether you like it or not. Once you have made a choice. Choose wisely for the choice you choose good or bad will manifest itself through circumstances..
Nature helps every man to the gratification of the thoughts, which he most encourages, and opportunities are presented which will most speedily bring to the surface both the good and evil thoughts.
This miraculous force will bring the right types of people and resources to the fulfillment of your most sincere desires. The universe will align itself to bring what it is you most desire into your life as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
Let a man cease from his sinful thoughts, and all the world will soften towards him, and be ready to help him; let him put away his weakly and sickly thoughts, and lo, opportunities will spring up on every hand to aid his strong resolves; let him encourage good thoughts, and no hard fate shall bind him down to wretchedness and shame. The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of colours, which at every succeeding moment it presents to you are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever-moving thoughts.
Change your thoughts and you can change your world. Your environment will magically change to align with the new thoughts that you hold in your mind! Hold onto your dream, believe in it, and allow God to do the rest. Let go and let God. Does that mean that once you have held a thought in your mind you can sit back and do nothing? Absolutely not! You must take action to accomplish anything. Once your thoughts are in alignment with your desired circumstances your actions will naturally change. As the actions change so too does your circumstances.
“So You will be what you will to be; Let failure find its false content In that poor word, ‘environment,’ But spirit scorns it, and is free.
“It masters time, it conquers space; It cowes that boastful trickster, Chance, And bids the tyrant Circumstance Uncrown, and fill a servant’s place.
“The human Will, that force unseen, The offspring of a deathless Soul, Can hew a way to any goal, Though walls of granite intervene.
“Be not impatient in delays But wait as one who understands; When spirit rises and commands The gods are ready to obey.”
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