EFFECTS OF THOUGHTS ON HEALTH AND BODY

The body is the servant of the mind. It obeys the operations of the mind, whether they be deliberately chosen or automatically expressed. At the bidding of unlawful thoughts the body sinks rapidly into disease and decay; at the command of glad and beautiful thoughts, it becomes clothed with youthfulness and beauty. 16

Disease and health, like circumstances, are rooted in thought. Sickly thoughts will express themselves through a sickly body. 16

The people who live in fear of diseases are the people who get it. Anxiety quickly demoralizes the whole body and lays it open to the entrance of disease. 16

Strong, pure and happy thoughts build up the body in vigour and grace. The body is a delicate and plastic instrument, which responds readily to the thoughts by which it is impressed, and habits of thought will produce their own effects, good or bad, upon it. 16

Men will continue to have impure and poisoned blood, so long as they propagate unclean thoughts. Out of a clean heart come a clean life and a clean body. Out of a defiled mind proceed a defiled life and a defiled body. 16

Thought is the fount (source) of action, life and manifestation; make the fount pure and all will be pure. 16

Change of diet will not help a man who will not change his thoughts. When a man makes his thoughts pure, he no longer desires impure food… Clean thoughts make clean habits. 16-17

If you want to perfect your body, guard your mind. If you want to renew your body, beautify your mind. Thoughts of malice, envy, disappointment, and despondency rob the mind of its health and grace. 17(paraphrased)

A sour face does not come by chance; it is made by sour thoughts. Wrinkles that mar (the face) are drawn by folly, passion, pride. 17

As you cannot have a sweet and wholesome abode (house) unless you admit the air and sunshine freely into your rooms, so a strong body and a bright, happy, or serene countenance can only result from the free admittance into the body of joy and goodwill and serenity. 17

[On the faces of the age there are wrinkles made by sympathy, others by strong and pure thought, and others are carved by passion…] With those who have lived righteously, age is calm, peaceful, and softly mellowed like the setting sun. 17

There is no physician like cheerful thought for dissipating the ills of the body; there is no comforter to compare with goodwill for dispersing the shadows of grief and sorrow. 17

To live continually in thought of ill-will, cynicism, suspicion, and envy, is to be confined in a self-made prison hole. But to think well of all, to be cheerful with all, to patiently learn to find the good in all – such unselfish thoughts are the very portals (gateways) of heaven. 17

EXTRACTS FROM AS A MAN THINKETH by James Allen

The circumstances in which a man encounters with suffering are the result of his own mental inharmony. The circumstances which a man encounters blessedness are the result of his mental harmony. 12

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. 12-13

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 (in life) as a burden unjustly imposed. 13

Indigence and indulgence are the two extremes of wretchedness. They are both equally unnatural and the result of mental disorder. 13

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. 13

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. 13

Law, not confusion, is the dominating principle in the universe; justice, not injustice, is the soul and substance of life. Righteousness, not corruption, is the moulding and moving force in the spiritual government of the world. 13

A 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. 13

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. 13

Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot. It rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstances… A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and the circumstances (of the man). 13-14

A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances… Nature helps every man to gratification of the thoughts which he most encourages. 14

The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combination of colours which at every succeeding moment it presents to you are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever-moving thoughts. 14

Though walls of granite intervene, the human will can hew a way to any goal. 15 (paraphrased)

EXTRACTS FROM AS A MAN THINKETH by James Allen (Part 3)

The outer world of circumstances shapes itself (in accordance) to the inner world of thought. 9

Man, in the outer conditions of his life, always arrives at the fruition and fulfillment of the inmost desires, the aspirations, and the thoughts he allows himself to be dominated by. 9 (paraphrased)

A man does not come to the alms-house (beggary) 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 (pressure) or any mere external force. The criminal thought had long been fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its gathered power. 9-10

Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself. 10

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. 10

Man, as the lord and master of thought, is the maker of himself and the shaper of and author of (his) environment. 10

Even at birth, the soul comes of its own and through every step of its earthly pilgrimage…attracts those conditions which reveal itself, which are the reflections of its own purity and impurity, its strength and weakness. 10

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. 10

Man is manacled (chained) only by himself; thought and action are the jailors of Fate – they imprisoned, when they are base; they are also the angels of Freedom – they liberate, when they are noble. 10 (paraphrased)

Man does not get what he wishes and prays for; he gets what he justly earns (paraphrased). “His wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with his thoughts and actions.” 10

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 outside effect, while all the time he is nourishing and preserving its cause in his heart… And this cause may be a vice or an unconscious weakness; but whatever it is, it is stubbornly retarding the efforts of its owner, and by so doing is calling aloud for urgent remedy. 10 (paraphrased)

Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound. 10

The man who does not shrink from self-crucifixion can never fail to accomplish an object upon which his heart is set. 10

Man is the causer [though nearly always unconsciously] of his circumstances, and…whilst aiming at the good end, he is continually frustrating its accomplishment by encouraging thoughts and desires which cannot possibly harmonize with that end. 11

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. 12

EXTRACTS FROM AS A MAN THINKETH by James Allen (Part 2)

Man is the master of thought, the moulder of (his own) character, and the maker and shaper of (his) condition, environment, and destiny. 6

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. 6

Man is always the master, even in his weakest and most abandoned state. But in his weakness and degradation he is a foolish master who misgoverns his “household” (i.e. his life). When he begins to reflect upon his condition and search diligently for the law upon which his being is established, he then becomes the wise master, directing his energies with intelligence and fashioning his thoughts to fruitful issues. 6

Only by much searching and mining are gold and diamonds obtained, and man can find every truth connected with his being, if he will dig deep into the mine of his soul. 6

A man may truly prove that he is the maker of his character, the moulder of his life, and the builder of his destiny if he will watch, control, and alter his thoughts; tracing their effects upon himself, upon others and upon his life and circumstances; linking cause and effect by patient practice and investigation. And utilizing his every experience (even the most trivial, everyday occurrence) as a means of obtaining that knowledge of himself which is understanding, wisdom and power. 6 (paraphrased)

Only by patience, practice, and ceaseless importunity (tireless persistence) can a man enter the door of the temple of (self-) knowledge. 7

EFFECTS OF THOUGHTS ON CIRCUMSTANCES

A man’s mind can 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. 8

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. 8

Thought and character are one, and as character can only manifest and discover itself through environment and circumstance, (so will) the outer conditions of a person’s life be always found to be harmoniously related to his inner state. 8

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. 8

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. 9

Man is buffeted (battered) by circumstances as 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. 9 (paraphrased)

Any man who has for any length of time practised self-control and self-purification knows that circumstances grow out of thought. 9 (paraphrased)

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 (harvests). 9

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 fruitage of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit. 9