This page offers you a daily dose of James Allen. Here you’ll find today’s entries from James Allen’s book of meditations for every day in the year and Morning and evening thoughts:
previous day - June 7th 2019 - next day
The man is the all-important factor.
A MAN imagines lie 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 opinions 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.
He who complains of his circumstances has not yet become a man.
The will to evil and the will to good
Are both within thee, which wilt
thou employ?
Thou knowest what is right and what is
wrong,
Which wilt though love and foster?
which destroy?
Thou art the chooser of thy thoughts and
deeds;
Thou art the maker of thine inward state;
The power is thine to be what thou wilt be;
Thou buildest Truth and Love, or lies and
hate.
The teaching of Jesus brings men back
to the simple truth that righteousness,
or right-doing, is entirely a matter of
individual conduct, and not a mystical
something apart from a man’s thoughts
and deeds.
Calmness and patience can become
habitual by first grasping, through effort,
a calm and patient thought, and then
continuously thinking it, and living in it,
until “use becomes second nature,” and
anger and impatience pass away for ever.
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