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Transcription
This transcription emphasizes the power of one's own thoughts and actions in achieving success and happiness. It emphasizes that individual responsibility is crucial in a justly ordered universe. It discusses the importance of lifting up one's thoughts and sacrificing selfishness in order to achieve greatness. It also emphasizes the role of vision and ideals in driving one's actions and accomplishments. The transcription concludes that one's circumstances will align with their thoughts and desires, and that success is the result of directed thought and effort. And all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts. In a justly ordered universe where a loss of equipos means destruction, individual responsibility must be absolute. A man's weakness and strength, wisdom and folly are his own, and not another man's. They are the product of himself and not another, and they can only be altered by himself, never by another. His circumstances also are his own, and not another man's. His suffering and his happiness revolve from within. As he thinks, so is he. As he continues to think, so he remains. A strong man cannot help a weaker unless the weaker is willing to be helped, and even then the weak man must become strong of himself. He must, by his own efforts, develop the strength which he admires in another. None but himself can alter his condition. It is unusual for men to think and to say, Many men are slaves because one is an oppressor. Let us hate the oppressor. However, there is among an increasing few a tendency to reverse this judgment One man is an oppressor because many are slaves. Let us despise the slaves. The truth is that oppressor and slave are cooperators in ignorance, and while seeming to afflict each other are in reality afflicting themselves. A perfect knowledge perceives the action of law in the weakness of the oppressed and the misapplied power of the oppressor. A perfect love, seeing the suffering which multiple states entail, condemns neither. A perfect compassion embraces both oppressor and oppressed. He who has conquered weakness and has put away selfish thoughts belongs neither to oppressor nor oppressed. He is free. A man can only rise, conquer and achieve by lifting up his thoughts. He can only remain weak and abject and miserable by refusing to lift up his thoughts. Before a man can achieve anything, even in worldly things, he must lift his thoughts above the animal level. He may not, in order to succeed, give up all animality and selfishness by any means, but a portion of it at least must be sacrificed. A man whose first thought is self-indulgence can neither think clearly nor plan methodically. He cannot find and develop his latent resources and must fail in any undertaking. Not having commenced manfully to control his thoughts, he is not in a position to control affairs and to adopt serious responsibilities. He is not fit to act independently and stand alone. He is limited by the thoughts which he chooses. There can be no progress, no achievement. Without sacrifice and a man's worldly success will be in the measure that he sacrifices his confused, animal thoughts and fixes his mind on the development of his plans and the strengthening of his resolution and self-reliance. And the higher he lifts his thoughts, the more manly and upright he becomes. The greater will be his success, the more blessed and enduring will be his achievement. The universe does not favor the greedy, the dishonest, the vicious, although on the merest surface it may sometimes appear to do so. Its continuing abetment is for the honest, the magnanimous, the virtuous. All the great teachers of the ages have declared this in varying forms, and to prove and know it, a man has but to persist in the field of his thoughts. Intellectual achievements are the result of thought consecrated to the search for knowledge, or both beautiful and true in life and nature. Such achievements may be sometimes connected with vanity and ambition, but they're not the outcome of those characteristics. They are the natural outgrowth of long and arduous effort and of arduous, searching thought. Spiritual achievement is the consummation of aspiration. He who lives constantly in the conception of wise and noble thoughts, he who dwells upon all that is elevating and unselfish will, as surely as the sun reaches its zenith and the moon its full, become knowledgeable and noble, and rise into a position of wisdom and blessedness. Achievement of whatever kind is the crown of effort, the diadem of thought. By self-control, resolution, erudition, and well-directed thought, a man ascends. By animality, indolence, corruption, and confusion of thought, a man descends. A man may rise to high success in the world and to lofty altitudes in the spiritual realm, and again descend into weakness and wretchedness by allowing arrogant, selfish, and corrupt thoughts to take possession of him. The victories attained by thought can only be maintained by watchfulness. Many give way when success is assured, and rapidly fall back into failure. Achievement, whether in the business, intellectual, or spiritual world, is the result of definitely directed thought, is governed by the same law and dependent upon the same method. The only difference lies in the object of attainment. He who would accomplish little, would sacrifice little. He who would achieve much, would sacrifice much. He who would attain highly, would sacrifice greatly. The visionaries are the saviors of the world. As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers. Humanity cannot forgive its dreamers. It cannot let their ideals fade and die. It lives in them. It feels in them the realities which it shall one day see and know. Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage, these are the architects of paradise. The world is beautiful because they have lived. Without them, laboring humanity would perish. He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it. Columbus cherished a vision of another world, and he discovered it. Copernicus fostered a vision of a multiplicity of worlds in a wider universe, and he revealed it. Buddha beheld a vision of a spiritual world of stainless beauty and perfect peace, and he entered into it. Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts. For out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment. Of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built. To desire is to obtain. To aspire is to achieve. Shall man's basest desires receive the fullest measure of gratification and his highest aspirations starve for lack of sustenance? Such is not the law. Such a condition of things can never attain. Ask and receive. Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be. Your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil. The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the steepings of realities. Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long remain so if you would perceive an ideal and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without. Here is a youth, hard-pressed by poverty and labor, confined long hours in an unhealthy workshop, unschooled and lacking all the arts. But he dreams of better things. He thinks of intelligence, of refinement, of grace and beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal life. The vision of a wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him. Unrest verges into action, and he utilizes all his time and means, small though they are, to the development of his latent powers and resources. Very soon, so altered has his mind become that the workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony with his mentality that it falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside. And with the growth of opportunities which fit the scope of his expanding ability, he passes out of it forever. Years later we see this youth as a full-grown man. We find him a master of certain forces which he wields with worldwide influence and almost unequal power. In his hands he holds the cords of gigantic responsibilities. He speaks and lo, lives are changed. Men and women hang upon his words and remold their characters. And, to sunlight, he becomes the fixed and luminous center around which innumerable destinies revolve. He has realized the vision of his youth. He has become one with his ideal. And you too will realize the vision, not the idle wish, of your heart, be it base or beautiful or a mixture of both. For you will always gravitate toward that which you secretly most love. Into your hands will be placed the exact result of your own thoughts. You will receive that which you burn. No more, no less. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts, your vision, your ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire, as great as your dominant aspirations. In the beautiful words of Stephen Davis, you may be keeping accounts, and presently shall walk out of the door that for so long has seen to you the barrier of your ideals, and shall find yourself before an audience, that then, still behind your ear, the ink stands on your fingers, and then and there shall pour out of your inspirations. You may be driving sheep, and you shall wander to the city, bucolic and open-mouthed, shall wander under the intrepid guidance of the Spirit into the studio of the Master, and after a time he shall say, I have nothing more to teach you. And now you have become the Master, who did so recently dream of great things while driving sheep. The thoughtless, the ignorant, and the indolent, seeing only the apparent effects of things and not the things themselves, talk of luck, of fortune, and chance. Seeing a man grow rich, they say, how lucky he is, observing another become intellectually exclaimed, how highly favored he is, and noting the character and wide influence of another, they remark, how chance aids him at every turn. They do not see the trials and failures and struggles which these men have voluntarily encountered in order to gain their experience. They have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have made, of the undaunted efforts they have put forth, of the faith they have exercised, that they might overcome the apparently insurmountable and realize the vision of their heart. They do not know the darkness and the heartaches. They only see the light and joy and call it luck. They do not see the long and arduous journey, but only behold the present goal and call it good fortune. They do not understand the process, but only perceive the result and call it chance. In all human affairs there are efforts and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. Gifts, powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort. They are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized. The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart, this you will build your life by, this you will become. Serenity, calmness of mind, is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. It is the result of long and patient effort and self-control. Its presence is an indication of ripened experience and of a more than ordinary knowledge of the laws and operations of thought. A man becomes calm in the measure that he understands himself as a thought-evolved being, for such knowledge necessitates the understanding of others as the result of thought. And as he develops a right understanding and sees more and more clearly the internal relations of things by the action of cause and effect, he ceases to fuss and fume and worry and grieve, and remains poised, steadfast, serene. The calm man, having learned how to govern himself, knows how to adapt himself to others, and they, in turn, reverence his spiritual strength and feel that they can learn of him and rely upon him. The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Even the most ordinary trader will find his business prosperity increases as he develops a greater self-control and equanimity, for people will always prefer to deal with a man whose demeanor is strongly equitable. The strong calm man is always loved and revered. He is like a shade-giving tree in a thirsty land, or a sheltering rock in a storm. Who does not love a tranquil heart, a sweet-tempered, balanced life? It does not matter whether it rains or shines, or what changes come to those possessing these blessings, for they are always cheerful, poised, calm. That exquisite poise and character which we call serenity is the last lesson of culture. It is the flowering of life, the fruitage of the soul. It is precious as wisdom, more to be desired than gold, even fine gold. How insignificant mere money looks in comparison with a serenely joyous life, a life that dwells in the ocean of truth, beyond the waves, out of the reach of tempests, in the blessed calm. How many people we know who sour their lives, who ruin all that is sweet and beautiful by explosive tempers, who destroy their poise and character and make ill will. It is a question whether the great majority of people do not ruin their lives and mar their happiness by lack of self-control. How few people we meet in life who are well-balanced, who have the exquisite poise which is characteristic of the finished person. Yet humanity searches with uncontrolled emotion, is tumultuous with ungoverned grief, is blown about by anxiety and doubt. Only the wise men, only he whose thoughts are controlled, let the winds and the storms obey him. Tempest-tossed souls, wherever you may be, under whatsoever conditions you may live, know this. In the ocean of life, the isles of blessedness are smiling, and the sunny shore of your ideal awaits your coming. Keep your hand firmly upon the helm of thought. In the bark of your soul reclaims the commanding master. He does but sleep. Wake him. Self-control is strength. Thought is mastery. Calmness is power. Stay unto your heart. Peace. Be still. This is the end of sign four. Sign three is already queued up for your listening.
