About this book
The problem of life consists in learning how to live. It is like the
problem of addition or subtraction to the schoolboy. When mastered, all
difficulty vanishes, and the problem has vanished. All the problems of
life, whether they be social, political or religious, subsist in
ignorance and wrongdoing. As men learn to live rightly, learn to direct
their forces and use their functions and faculties by the light of
wisdom, the sum of life will be correctly done, and its mastery will
put an end to all the problems of evil. To the wise, all such problems
have ceased. Contents: Inner world of thoughts; Outer world of things;
Habit: its slavery and its freedom; Bodily conditions; Poverty; Man's
spiritual dominion; Conquest: not resignation.
CHAPTER 1
The Inner World of Thoughts
Man is the maker of happiness and
misery. Further, he is the creator and perpetuator of his own happiness
and misery. These things are not externally imposed; they are internal
conditions. Their cause is neither deity, nor devil, nor circumstance,
but Thought. They are the effects of deeds, and deeds are the visible
side of thoughts. Fixed attitudes of mind determine courses of conduct
and from courses of conduct come those reactions called happiness and
unhappiness. This being so, it follows that, to alter the reactive
condition, one must alter the active thought. To exchange misery for
happiness it is necessary to reverse the fixed attitude of mind and
habitual course of conduct which is the cause of misery, and the
reversed effect will appear in the mind and life. A man has no power to
be happy while thinking and acting selfishly; he cannot be unhappy
while thinking and acting unselfishly. Wheresoever the cause is, there
the effect will appear. Man cannot abrogate effects, but he can alter
causes. He can purify his nature; he can remold his character. There is
great power in self-conquest; there is great joy in transforming
oneself.
Each man is circumscribed by his
own thoughts, but he can gradually extend their circle; he can enlarge
and elevate his mental sphere. He can leave the low, and reach up to
the high; he can refrain from harboring thoughts that are dark and
hateful, and can cherish thoughts that are bright and beautiful; and as
he does his, he will pass into a higher sphere of power and beauty,
will become conscious of a more complete and perfect world.
For men live in spheres low or
high according to the nature of their thoughts. Their world is as dark
and narrow as they conceive it to be, as expansive and glorious as
their comprehensive capacity. Everything around them is tinged with the
color of their thoughts.
Consider the man whose mind is
suspicious, covetous, and envious. How small and mean and drear
everything appears to him. Having no grandeur in himself, he sees no
grandeur anywhere; being ignoble himself, he is incapable of seeing
nobility in any being. Even his God is a covetous being that can be
bribed, and he judges all men and women to be just as petty and selfish
as he himself is, so that he sees in the most exalted acts of
unselfishness only motives that are mean and base.
Consider again the man whose mind
is unsuspecting, generous, and magnanimous. How wondrous and beautiful
is his world. He is conscious of some kind of nobility in all creatures
and beings. He sees men as true, and to him they are true. In his
presence the meanest forget their nature, and for the moment become
like himself, getting a glimpse, albeit confused, in that temporary
up-liftment of a higher order of things, of an immeasurably nobler and
happier life.
That small-minded, and this
large-hearted, man live in two different worlds, though they be
neighbors. Their consciousness embraces totally different principles.
Their actions are each the reverse of the other. Their moral insight is
contrary. They each look out upon a different order of things. Their
mental spheres are separate, and, like two detached circles, they never
mingle. The one is in hell, the other in heaven as truly as they will
ever be, and death will not place a greater gulf between them than
already exists. To the one, the world is a den of thieves; to the
other, it is the dwelling-place of Gods. The one keeps a revolver
handy, and is always on his guard against being robbed or cheated
(unconscious of the fact that he is all the time robbing and cheating
himself); the other keeps ready a banquet for the best. He throws open
his doors to talent, beauty, genius, goodness. His friends are of the
aristocracy of character. They have become a part of himself. They are
in his sphere of thought, his world of consciousness. From his heart
pours forth nobility, and it returns to him tenfold in the multitude of
those who love him and do him honor.
The natural grades in human
society - what are they but spheres of thought, and modes of conduct
manifesting those spheres? The proletariat may rail against these
divisions, but he will not alter or affect them. There is no artificial
remedy for equalizing states of thought having no natural affinity, and
separated by the fundamental principles of life. The lawless and the
law-abiding are eternally apart, nor is it hatred nor pride that
separates them, but states of intelligence and modes of conduct which
in the moral principles of things stand mutually unrelated. The rude
and ill-mannered are shut out from the circle of the gentle and refined
by the impassable wall of their own mentality which, though they may
remove by patient self-improvement, they can never scale by a vulgar
intrusion. The kingdom of heaven is not taken by violence, but he who
conforms to its principles receives the password. The ruffian moves in
a society of ruffians; the saint is one of an elect brethren whose
communion is divine music. All men are mirrors reflecting according to
their own surface. All men, looking at the world of men and things, are
looking into a mirror which gives back their own reflection.
Each man moves in the limited or
expansive circle of his own thoughts, and all outside that circle is
non-existent to him. He only knows that which he has become. The
narrower the boundary, the more convinced is the man that there is no
further limit, no other circle. The lesser cannot contain the greater,
and he has no means of apprehending the larger minds; such knowledge
comes only by growth. The man who moves in a widely extended circle of
thought knows all the lesser circles from which he has emerged, for in
the larger experience all lesser experiences are contained and
preserved; and when his circle impinges upon the sphere of perfect
manhood, when he is fitting himself for company and communion with them
of blameless conduct and profound understanding, then his wisdom will
have become sufficient to convince him that there are wider circles
still beyond of which he is as yet but dimly conscious, or is entirely
ignorant.
Men, like schoolboys, find
themselves in standards or classes to which their ignorance or
knowledge entitles them. The curriculum of the sixth standard is a
mystery to the boy in the first; it is outside and beyond the circle of
his comprehension; but he reaches it by persistent effort and patient
growth in learning. By mastering and outgrowing all the standards
between, he comes at last to the sixth, and makes its learning his own;
and beyond still is the sphere of the teacher. So in life, men whose
deeds are dark and selfish, full of passion and personal desire, cannot
comprehend those whose deeds are bright and unselfish, whose minds are
calm, deep, and pure, but they can reach this higher standard, this
enlarged consciousness, by effort in right doing, by growth in thought
and moral comprehension. And above and beyond all lower and higher
standards stand the Teachers of mankind, the Cosmic Masters, and the
Saviors of the world whom the adherents of the various religions
worship. There are grades in teachers as in pupils, and some there are
who have not yet reached the rank and position of Master, yet, by the
sterling morality of their character, are guides and teachers; but to
occupy a pulpit or rostrum does not make a man a teacher. A man is
constituted a teacher by virtue of that moral greatness which calls
forth the respect and reverence of mankind.
Each man is as low or high, as
little or great, as base or noble as his thoughts; no more, no less.
Each move within the sphere of his own thoughts, and that sphere is his
world. In that world in which he forms his habits of thought, he finds
his company. He dwells in the region which harmonizes with his
particular growth. But he need not perforce remain in the lower worlds.
He can lift his thoughts and ascend. He can pass above and beyond into
higher realms, into happier habitations. When he chooses and wills he
can break the carapace of selfish thought, and breathe the purer airs
of a more expansive life.
CHAPTER 2
The Outer World of Things
The world of things is the other half
of the world of thoughts. The inner informs the outer. The greater
embraces the lesser. Matter is the counterpart of mind. Events are
streams of thought. Circumstances are combinations of thought, and the
outer conditions and actions of others in which each man is involved
are intimately related to his own mental needs and development. Man is
a part of his surroundings. He is not separate from his fellows, but is
bound closely to them by the peculiar intimacy and interaction of
deeds, and by those fundamental laws of thought which are the roots of
human society.
One cannot alter external things
to suit his passing whims and wishes, but he can set aside his whims
and wishes; he can so alter his attitude of mind towards externals that
they will assume a different aspect. He cannot mould the actions of
others towards him, but he can rightly fashion his actions towards
them. He cannot break down the wall of circumstance by which he is
surrounded, but he can wisely adapt himself to it, or find the way out
into enlarged circumstances by extending his mental horizon. Things
follow thoughts. Alter your thoughts, and things will receive a new
adjustment. To reflect truly the mirror must be true. A warped glass
gives back an exaggerated image. A disturbed mind gives a distorted
reflection of the world. Subdue the mind, organize and tranquillize it,
and a more beautiful image of the universe, a more prefect perception
of the world-order will be the result.
Man has all power within the
world of his own mind, to purify and perfect it; but his power in the
outer world of other minds is subject and limited. This is made plain
when we reflect that each finds himself in a world of men and things, a
unit amongst myriads of similar units. These units do not act
independently and despotically, but responsively and sympathetically.
My fellow-men are involved in my actions, and they will deal with them.
If what I do be a menace to them, they will adopt protective measures
against me. As the human body expels its morbid atoms, so the body
politic instinctively expurgates its recalcitrant members. Your wrong
acts are so many wounds inflicted on this body politic, and the healing
of its wounds will be your pain and sorrow. This ethical cause and
effect is not different from that physical cause and effect with which
the simplest is acquainted. It is but an extension of the same law; its
application to the larger body of humanity. No act is aloof.
Your most secret deed is invisibly
reported, its good being protected in joy, its evil destroyed in pain.
There is a great ethical truth in the old fable of "the Book of Life,"
in which every thought and deed is recorded and judged. It is because
of this - that your deed belongs, not alone to yourself, but to
humanity and the universe - that you are powerless to avert external
effects, but are all-powerful to modify and correct internal causes;
and it is also because of this that the perfecting of one's own deeds
is man's highest duty and most sublime accomplishment.
The obverse of this truth - that
you are powerless to obviate external things and deeds, is, that
external things and deeds are powerless to injure you. The cause of
your bondage as of your deliverance is within. The injury that comes to
you through others is the rebound of your own deed, the reflex of your
own mental attitude. They are the instruments, you are the cause.
Destiny is ripened deeds. The fruit of life, both bitter and sweet, is
received by each man in just measure. The righteous man is free. None
can injure him; none can destroy him; none can rob him of his peace.
His attitude towards men, born of understanding, disarms their power to
wound him. Any injury which they may try to inflict, rebounds upon
themselves to their own hurt, leaving him unharmed and untouched. The
good that goes from him is his perennial fount of happiness, his
eternal source of strength. Its root is serenity, its flower is joy.
The harm which a man sees in the
action of another towards him - say, for instance, an act of slander -
is not in the act itself, but in his attitude of mind towards it; the
injury and unhappiness are created by himself, and subsist in his lack
of understanding concerning the nature and power of deeds. He thinks
the act can permanently injure or ruin his character, whereas it is
utterly void of any such power; the reality being that the deed can
only injure or ruin the doer of it. Thinking himself injured, the man
becomes agitated and unhappy, and takes great pains to counteract the
supposed harm to himself, and these very pains give the slander an
appearance of truth, and aid rather than hinder it. All his agitation
and unrest is created by his reception of the deed, and not actually by
the deed itself. The righteous man has proved this by the fact that the
same act has ceased to arouse in him any disturbance. He understands,
and therefore ignores, it. It belongs to a sphere which he has ceased
to inhabit, to a region of consciousness with which he has no longer
any affinity. He does not receive the act into himself, the thought of
injury to himself being absent. He lives above the mental darkness in
which such acts thrive, and they can no more injure or disturb him than
a boy can injure or divert the sun by throwing stones at it. It was to
emphasize this that Buddha, to the end of his days, never ceased to
tell his disciples that so long as the thought "I have been injured,"
or "I have been cheated," or "I have been insulted," could arise in a
man's mind, he had not comprehended the Truth.
And as with the conduct of
others, so is it with external things - with surroundings and
circumstances - in themselves they are neither good nor bad, it is the
mental attitude and state of heart that makes them so. A man imagines
he could do great things if he were not hampered by circumstances - by
want of money, want of time, want of influence, and want of freedom
from family ties. In reality the man is not hindered by these things at
all. He, in his mind, ascribes to them a power which they do not
possess, and he submits not to them, but to his opinion about them,
that is, to a weak element in his nature. The real "want" that hampers
him is the want of the right attitude of mind. When he regards his
circumstances as spurs to his resources, when he sees that his
so-called "drawbacks" are the very steps up which he is to mount
successfully to his achievement, then his necessity gives birth to
invention, and the "hindrances" are transformed into aids. The man is
the all-important factor. If his mind be wholesome and rightly tuned,
he will not whine and whimper over his circumstances, but will rise up,
and outgrow them. He who complains of his circumstances has not yet
become a man, and Necessity will continue to prick and lash him till he
rises into manhood's strength, and then she will submit to him.
Circumstance is a severe taskmaster to the weak, an obedient servant to
the strong.
It is not external things, but
our thoughts about them that bind us or set us free. We forge our own
chains, build our own dungeons, take ourselves prisoners; or we loose
our bonds, build our own palaces, or roam in freedom through all scenes
and events. If I think that my surroundings are powerful to bind me
that thought will keep me bound. If I think that, in my thought and
life, I can rise above my surroundings, that thought will liberate me.
One should ask of his thoughts, "Are they leading to bondage or
deliverance?" and he should abandon thoughts that bind, and adopt
thoughts that set free.
If we fear our fellow-men, fear
opinion, poverty, the withdrawal of friends and influence, then we are
bound indeed, and cannot know the inward happiness of the enlightened,
the freedom of the just; but if in our thoughts we are pure and free,
if we see in life's reactions and reverses nothing to cause us trouble
or fear, but everything to aid us in our progress, nothing remains that
can prevent us from accomplishing the aims of our life, for then we are
free indeed.
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