The Power of Thought: A Philosophical Exploration of Self-Transformation, Lecture notes of Law

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THE COMPLETE WORKS OF

JAMES ALLEN

"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he"

As a Man Thinketh (1902)

From Poverty to Power; or, The Realization of Prosperity and Peace (1901)

All These Things Added (1903)

Through the Gates of Good (1903)

Byways to Blessedness (1904)

Out from the Heart (1904)

The Life Triumphant: Mastering the Heart and Mind (1908)

The Mastery of Destiny (1909)

Above Life’s Turmoil (1910)

From Passion to Peace (1910)

Eight Pillars of Prosperity (1911)

Man: King of Mind, Body and Circumstance (1911)

Light on Life’s Difficulties (1912)

Foundation Stones to Happiness and Success (1913)

Men and Systems (1914)

The Shining Gateway (1915)

An unrewarded genius

James Allen is a literary mystery man. His inspirational writings have influenced

millions for good. Yet today he remains almost unknown...... None of his books give a

clue to his life other than to mention his place of residence - Ilfracombe, England. His

name cannot be found in a major reference work. Not even the Library of Congress or

the British Museum has much to say about him.

Who was this man who believed in the power of thought to bring fame, fortune and

happiness? Or did he, as Henry David Thoreau says, hear a different drummer?...

James Allen never gained fame or fortune. That much is true. His was a quiet,

unrewarded genius. He seldom made enough money from his writings to cover

expenses.

Allen was born in Leicester, Central England, November 28, 1864. The family

business failed within a few years, and in 1879 his father left for America in an effort

to recoup his losses. The elder Allen had hoped to settle in the United States, but was

robbed and murdered before he could send for his family.

The financial crisis that resulted forced James to leave school at fifteen. He eventually

became a private secretary, a position that would be called administrative assistant

today. He worked in this capacity for several British manufacturers until 1902, when

he decided to devote all his time to writing.

Unfortunately, Allen's literary career was short, lasting only nine years, until his death

in 1912. During that period he wrote nineteen books, a rich outpouring of ideas that

have lived on to inspire later generations.

Soon after finishing his first book, From Poverty To Power, Allen moved to

Ilfracombe, on England's southwest coast. The little resort town with its seafront

Victorian hotels and its rolling hills and winding lanes offered him the quiet

atmosphere he needed to pursue his philosophical studies.

As A Man Thinketh was Allen's second book. Despite its subsequent popularity he was

dissatisfied with it. Even though it was his most concise and eloquent work, the book

that best embodied his thought, he somehow failed to recognize its value. His wife

Lily had to persuade him to publish it.

James Allen strove to live the ideal life described by Russia¹s great novelist and

mystic Count Leo Tolstoy - the life of voluntary poverty, manual labor and ascetic

self-discipline. Like Tolstoy, Allen sought to improve himself, be happy, and master

all of the virtues. His search for felicity for man on earth was typically Tolstoyan.

His day in Ilfracombe began with a predawn walk up to the Cairn, a stony spot on the

hillside overlooking his home and the sea. He would remain there for an hour in

meditation. Then he would return to the house and spend the morning writing. The

afternoons were devoted to gardening, a pastime he enjoyed. His evenings were spent

in conversation with those who were interested in his work.

A friend described Allen as a frail-looking little man, Christ-like, with a mass of

flowing black hair...... I think of him especially in the black velvet suit he always wore

in the evenings, the friend wrote. He would talk quietly to a small group of us then -

English, French, Austrian and Indian - of meditation, of philosophy, of Tolstoy or

Buddha, and of killing nothing, not even a mouse in the garden.

He overawed us all a little because of his appearance, his gentle conversation, and

especially because he went out to commune with God on the hills before dawn.

James Allen's philosophy became possible when liberal Protestantism discarded the

stern dogma that man is sinful by nature. It substituted for that dogma an optimistic

belief in man's innate goodness and divine rationality.

This reversal of doctrine was, as William James said, the greatest revolution of the

19th Century. It was part of a move toward a reconciliation of science and religion

following Darwin's publication The Origin of Species.

Charles Darwin himself hinted at the change in belief in The Descent of Man. In that

book he wrote, the highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that

we ought to control our thoughts..

Allen's work embodies the influence of Protestant liberalism on the one hand and of

Buddhist thought on the other. For example, the Buddha teaches, All that we are is the

result of what we have thought. Allen¹s Biblical text says, As a man thinketh in his

heart, so is he.

Allen insists upon the power of the individual to form his own character and to create

his own happiness. Thought and character are one, he says, 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 him that, for the time being, they

are indispensable to his development.

AS A MAN THINKETH

James Allen

Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes, And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills, Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:— He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass: Environment is but his looking-glass.

1. 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.

"Thought in the mind hath made us, What we are By thought was wrought and built. If a man‘s mind Hath evil thoughts, pain comes on him as comes The wheel the ox behind....

..If one endure In purity of thought, joy follows him As his own shadow—sure."

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 favour or chance, but is the natural result of continued 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 harbouring of grovelling thoughts.

Man is made or unmade by himself; in the armoury 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 below the level of the beast. Between these two extremes are 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 moulder of character, and the maker and shaper 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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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 endeavour), a man at last arrives at their fruition and fulfilment 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 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 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 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.

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 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?

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.

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 labour 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.