Man sows an action or thought and reaps a habit of doing or thinking. He sows a habit and reaps a character. He sows a character and reaps a destiny. Habit is second nature or rather first nature itself. Man has made his own destiny by thinking and acting. He can change his destiny. He is the master of his own destiny. There is no doubt of this.
When you discover that you are
living in a world that you did not create and that does not correspond with
your ideals, there is a tendency to break loose from external conditions at the
earliest possible moment; but this tendency must be checked. Nothing is gained
through an attempt to change from one world of effect to another world of
effect without first changing the cause. The majority believe that, when things
are wrong in the outer world the only remedy is to change external conditions;
but the fact is that external conditions are simply effects from internal
causes, and so long as those internal causes remain the same, no attempt to
change external conditions will prove of permanent value. So long as there are
adverse causes in your inner life there will be adverse effects in your outer
life, no matter how many times you may change from one condition to another or
from one place to another.
When you begin to seek emancipation
from the false world in which you are living now; in other words, when you
begin to take positive measures to change your own fate, the first thing to do
is to resolve not to make any forceful effort to change external conditions
without first changing the inner cause of those conditions. Let outer things be
as they are for the time being and continue to remain where you are until you
can open a door to better things; but while you are waiting for this door to
open do not be idle in any manner whatever. Although you are letting things be
as they are in the external sense, and although you are not forcing yourself
into different places or circumstances, still your purpose must be to entirely
remake yourself.
You came into this false state of
life because you were misled by your own judgment, and if you should break loose,
this same judgment will mislead you again; you will thus pass from one world
that is not your own into some other world that is not your own, and there will
be no improvement in the change. If you have not improved yourself in any
manner whatever, your judgment will be just as inferior and unreliable as it
was before, and no attempt to follow this judgment into different conditions
will help matters in the least. Your object is not to set yourself free from
the false world in which you are living now and then enter some other world
that is not your own.
You are not ready to move, neither
physically nor mentally, until you have created a world of your own just as you
would have it in your present state of development. Therefore, all thought of
change will but divert your attention from the real purpose in view. So long as
you are constantly thinking about external changes your mind cannot concentrate
upon internal changes. So long as you are trying to change external conditions
you cannot change yourself, and as you, yourself, are the cause of the new
world which you are trying to create, you must recreate yourself before you can
create the external world as desired.
To change your fate begin with
yourself. If the environments in which you live are beneath your ideal, nothing
can be gained by leaving those environments until the way is opened naturally
to better things. If you simply get up and leave, you will gravitate into
something elsewhere that will be just as uncongenial as those conditions you
left behind. First, find the reason why you are living in your present adverse
environments, then proceed to remove that cause.
There may be many reasons, but in
most cases the principal reason is a lack of ability or the lack of power to
apply the ability you possess. In such a case you must remove inability by
becoming more proficient, and as soon as you are competent to render better
service you will readily find a better place. This means larger remuneration,
and you will thus be able to secure more desirable surroundings. The many,
however, will think that to promote sufficient improvement so as to command
greater recompense, and do so in a short time, is practically impossible under
the average conditions; but all difficulties that may be met in this connection
may be readily removed through the principles of modern metaphysics.
Continuous improvement in everything
pertaining to the life, the power, the capacity or the mentality of the
individual can be readily promoted by anyone and decided results secured in a
very short time. Therefore, no person need remain in adverse or limited
conditions. He can, through the awakening and the expression of the best that
is in himself, become competent to take advantage of greater opportunities and
thus change his fate, his future and his destiny.
If you wish to improve your physical
environments, remain content where you are while you develop the power to earn
and create better environments. Contentment with things as they are and harmony
with everything about you are indispensable essentials if you wish to increase
your ability, your capacity and your worth. To continue to kick against the
pricks is to remain where pricks are abundant; but when we cease this mode of
action and begin to polish off all the rough corners of our nature and improve
ourselves in every manner possible, things will take a turn. We will leave the
world of pricks and enter a smoother path. The polished man is admitted to the
polished world where there are no rough places and where adverse conditions are
few, if existing at all.
When circumstances are against you,
do not contend with circumstances. So long as we contend with things, things
will contend with us. Do not resist present conditions; you prolong their
existence by so doing. Whatever comes, meet all things in the attitude of
perfect harmony and you will find that all things, even the most adverse, can
be readily handled and turned to good account. We all know the marvelous power
of the man who can harmonize contending factions, be they in his own life or in
his circumstances.
He not only gains good from
everything that he meets, but he becomes a most highly respected personage, and
is sought wherever opportunities are great and where great things are to be
accomplished. Learn to harmonize the contending factions in your own life and
experience, and you will find yourself entering new worlds where circumstances
are more congenial and opportunities far greater. You will thus meet more
desirable events, more desirable people, and superior advantages of every
description will appear in your pathway. If your present friends are not to
your liking admire them nevertheless for every good quality that they may
possess. Emphasize their good qualities and ignore everything in their nature
that seems inferior. This will help you to develop superior qualities in
yourself; and this is extremely important, because as you develop superiority
you prepare yourself for places higher up in the scale.
Make yourself over, so to speak, in
your own friendship; increase your personal worth; polish your own character;
refine your mind, and make real more and more of the ideal; double and treble
your love and your kindness and constantly increase your admiration for
everything that has real quality and high worth. Continue thus until you have
results, whether those results begin to come at once or not; they will
positively come ere long, and the things that you develop in yourself you will
meet in your external world.
Change yourself for the better in
every shape and manner, and you change your fate for the better, but the change
that you produce in yourself must not simply be negative in its action. It is
the positive character, the positive mind, the positive personality that meets
in the external world what has been developed in the internal world. The fact
that a change in yourself can produce a similar change in your fate, your
environments, your circumstances, in brief, everything in your outer world, may
not seem clear at first.; but it is easily demonstrated to be the truth when we
analyze the relationship that exists between man and the world in which he
lives. Everything that exists in your outer world has a correspondent in your
inner world. This inner correspondent is the cause that has either created or
attracted its external counterpart, and the process is easily understood.
To state it briefly, environment
corresponds with ability. Circumstances are the aggregation of events brought
about by your own actions and associations and friends, which follow the law of
like attracting like. That environment is the direct effect of ability may not
seem true when we observe that there are many people living in luxury that have
practically no ability, but we must first demonstrate that these people have no
ability. We shall find that those who have actually accumulated their own
wealth have ability, in fact, exceptional ability, though they may not always
have employed it according to the exact principles of justice. On the other
hand, when we understand the process of creation we shall find that ability
employed according to principle will produce far greater results than when it
is employed unjustly. Therefore, the law underlying the power of ability to
create its own environment acts wholly in the favor of him who lives according
to the highest ideals of life.
This fact becomes more evident when
we discern that success is not measured simply by the accumulation of things,
but also by the accumulation of those elements in life that pertain to quality
and worth in man's interior nature. It is wealth in the mental and the
spiritual worlds that has the greatest value or the greatest power in promoting
the welfare and the happiness of man, and this higher wealth can be accumulated
only by those who are living according to their ideals. However, the
accumulation of mental and spiritual wealth will have a direct tendency to
increase the power and the capacity of practical ability, and practical ability
when scientifically applied will tend to increase tangible wealth; that is, to
improve the value and the worth of external environments.
When we consider this subject from
the universal viewpoint we shall find a perfect correspondent existing between
the size of a man's possessions, physical, mental and spiritual, and the size
of his brains, taking the term "brains" to signify ability, capacity
and worth in the largest sense; but the size of brains can be increased
perpetually. We therefore conclude that possessions in the larger sense can be
increased perpetually, and he who is perpetually increasing his possessions on
all the planes of his life is constantly changing his fate for the better. We
shall also find that when a person increases the power of his own life he will
bring about, through his own actions, new events, and these new events will
produce new circumstances.
To change circumstances is to change
fate; and whatever the change may be in fate, circumstances or events it will
be a change for the better, if the increase of power is applied according to
the principles of ideals. Again, when a person develops quality and superiority
in himself he will, through the law of attraction, meet friends and
associations that are after his own heart. In other words, he will enter a
world where his ideals, both as to persons and as to things, are constantly
being made real in every sphere of his present state of existence. He is thus
creating for himself a better fate in every sense of the term and opening doors
and pathways to a larger and a more beautiful future than he has ever realized
before; but the beginning is in himself; in fact, every change for the better
must begin within the life of man himself, and whoever will begin to change for
the better in the within will positively realize greater and greater changes
for the better in the without.
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