The Wisdom of James Allen –
5 Classic Works, Includes: As a Man Thinketh,
The Path to Prosperity, The
Mastery of Destiny, The Way of Peace, &
Entering the Kingdom
Price:
$9.95
Pages:
384
Description:
James
Allen, a 19th century English writer, is best known as the author of the
best-selling, inspirational classic, As a Man Thinketh. For over a
hundred years, this timeless work has motivated readers to lead more successful,
effective, and peaceful lives. James Allen is also the author of over twenty
other books, that are lesser known but equally powerful. The Wisdom of James
Allen is the first book in the Laurel Creek James Allen Wisdom series. It
combines 5 of his classic works in one volume and includes: As a Man
Thinketh, The Path to Prosperity, The Mastery of Destiny, The Way of Peace,
& Entering the Kingdom
James Allen was an advocate
of ethics in all the areas of our lives. His goal was to reveal universal
spiritual principles to the masses in order to relieve people of their
suffering, empower the individual, and thus uplift humanity. Allen=s works focus on teaching
individual responsibility, finding the cause of personal problems within our own
selves, and revealing how each of us can harness our inner power to master our
own destinies. The wisdom contained in his works provides a valuable guide for
life.
Table of
Contents:
BOOK 1: As a Man Thinketh
Thought and
Character
Effect of Thought on Circumstances
Effect of Thought on Health and the Body
Thought and Purpose
The Thought Factor in Achievement
Visions and Ideals
Serenity
BOOK 2: The Path to Prosperity
The
Lesson of Evil
The World a Reflex of Mental States
The Way Out of Undesirable Conditions
The Silent Power of Thought
The Secret of Health, Success, and Power
The Secret of Abounding Happiness
The Realization of Prosperity
BOOK 3: The Mastery of
Destiny
Deeds,
Character, & Destiny
The Science of Self-Control
Cause & Effect in Human Conduct
Training of the Will
Mind Building & Life Building
Cultivation of Concentration
Practice of Meditation
The Power of Purpose
The Joy of Accomplishment
BOOK 4: The Way of
Peace
The
Power of Meditation
The Two Masters, Self and Truth
Acquiring Spiritual Power
The Realization of Selfless Love
Saints, Sages and Saviors: The Law of Service
The Realization of Perfect Peace
BOOK 5: Entering the
Kingdom
The
Soul’s Great Need
The Competitive Laws and The Law of Love
The Finding of a Principle
At Rest in the Kingdom and All Things Added
BOOK I: As a Man
Thinketh
(Excerpt):
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 seedlings of realities.
Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long remain so
if you but 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 to long hours
in an unhealthy workshop; unschooled, and lacking all the arts of refinement.
But he dreams of better things. He thinks of intelligence, of refinement, of
grace and beauty. He conceives of, and mentally builds up, an ideal condition of
life. The vision of a wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him.
Unrest urges him to action, and he utilizes all his spare hours, 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 powers, 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 of the mind which he wields with world-wide influence and
almost unequaled 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 thoughts and remold their characters, and sunlike, 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, you will always gravitate toward
that which you, secretly, most love. In your hands will be placed the exact
results of your own thoughts. You will receive that which you earn; 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 aspiration.
Excerpt
#1:
Even poverty and lack of time and leisure are not the evils that you
imagine they are, and if they hinder you in your progress, it is only because
you have clothed them in your own weaknesses, and the evil that you see in them
is really in yourself.
Endeavor to fully and completely realize that insofar as you shape and
mold your mind, you are the maker of your destiny, and as, by the transmuting
power of self-discipline you realize
this more and more, you will come to see these so-called evils may be
converted into blessings.
You will then utilize your poverty for the cultivation of patience, hope,
and courage, and your lack of time in the gaining of promptness of action and
decision of mind, by seizing the precious moments as they present themselves for
your acceptance.
As in the rankest soil the most beautiful flowers are grown, so in the dark soil of poverty the choicest flowers of humanity have developed and bloomed. Where there are difficulties to cope with, and unsatisfactory conditions to overcome, there virtue most flourishes and manifests its glory.
It may be that you are in the employment of a tyrannous master or
mistress, and you feel that you are harshly treated. Look upon this also as
necessary to your training. Return your employer’s unkindness with gentleness
and forgiveness. Practice unceasingly patience and self-control. Turn the
disadvantage to account by utilizing it for the gaining of mental and spiritual
strength. Thus, by your silent example and influence, you will be teaching your
employer, will be helping him to grow ashamed of his conduct, and will, at the
same time, be lifting yourself up to the height of spiritual attainment by which
you will be enabled to step into new and more congenial surroundings at the time
when they are presented to you.
Excerpt
#2:
It is granted only to the heart that abounds with integrity, trust, generosity, and love to realize true prosperity. The heart that is not possessed of these qualities cannot know prosperity, for prosperity, like happiness, is not an outward possession, but an inward realization.
The greedy man may become a millionaire, but he will always be wretched,
mean, and poor, and will even consider himself outwardly poor so long as there
is a man in the world who is richer than himself. On the other hand, the
upright, the open-handed, and loving will realize a full and rich prosperity,
even though their outward possessions may be small. He is poor who is
dissatisfied; he is rich who is contented with what he
has.
When
we contemplate the fact that the universe is abounding in all good things,
material as well as spiritual, and compare it with man’s blind eagerness to
secure a few gold coins, or a few acres of dirt, it is then that we realize how
dark and ignorant selfishness is; it is then that we know that self-seeking is
self destruction.
Nature gives all, without reservation, and loses nothing. Man or woman,
grasping all, loses everything.
BOOK
3: The Mastery of Destiny (Excerpts)
Excerpt
#1:
Thoroughness consists in doing little things as though they were the
greatest things in the world. That
the little things of life are of primary importance is a truth not generally
understood, and the thought that little things can be neglected, thrown aside,
or slurred over, is at the root of that lack thoroughness which is so common,
and which results in imperfect work and unhappy lives.
When one understands that the great things of the world and of life consist of a combination of small things, and that without this aggregation of small things the great things would be nonexistent, then he begins to pay careful attention to those things which he formerly regarded as insignificant. He thus acquires the quality of thoroughness, and becomes a man of usefulness and influence; for the possession or nonpossession of this one quality may mean all the difference between a life of peace and power, and one of misery and weakness.
Excerpt
#2:
The
men who have molded the destinies of humanity have been men mighty of purpose.
Like the Roman laying his road, they have followed along a well-defined path,
and have refused to swerve even when torture and death confronted them. The
Great Leaders of the race are the mental road-makers, and mankind follows in the
intellectual and spiritual paths which they have carved out and
beaten.
Great is the power of purpose. To know how great, let a man study it in
the lives of those whose influence has shaped the ends of nations and directed
the destinies of the world. In an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon, we see the
power of purpose when it is directed in worldly and personal channels. In a
Confucius, a Buddha, or a Christ, we perceive its vaster power when its course
is along heavenly and impersonal paths.
Power goes with intelligence. There are lesser and greater purposes
according with degrees of intelligence. A great mind will always be great of
purpose. A weak intelligence will be without purpose. A drifting mind argues a
measure of undevelopment.
What can resist an unshakable purpose? What can stand against it or turn
it aside? Inert matter yields to a living force, and circumstance succumbs to a
power of purpose. Truly a man of unlawful purpose will, in achieving his ends,
destroys himself, but the man of good and lawful purpose cannot fail. It only
needs that he daily renew the fire and energy of his fixed resolve, to
consummate his objective….
The man of fixed purpose who, whether misunderstandings and foul
accusations, or flatteries and fair promises, rain upon him, does not yield a
fraction of his resolve, is the man of excellence and achievement; of success,
greatness, power.
Hindrances stimulate the man of purpose, difficulties nerve him to
renewed exertion; mistakes, losses, pains, do not subdue him. Failures are steps
in the ladder of success, for he is ever conscious of the certainty of final
achievement.
All things at last yield to the silent, irresistible, all-conquering
energy of purpose.
BOOK 4: The Way of Peace
(Excerpt)
It is said that Michelangelo saw in every rough block of stone a thing of
beauty awaiting the master-hand to bring it into reality. Even so, within each
there reposes the divine Image awaiting the master-hand of Faith and the chisel
of Patience to bring it into manifestation. And that divine Image is revealed
and realized as stainless, selfless Love.
Hidden deep in every human heart, though frequently covered up with a
mass of hard and almost impenetrable accretions, is the spirit of divine Love,
whose holy and spotless essence is undying and eternal. It is the Truth in man;
it is that which belongs to the Supreme; that which is real and immortal. All
else changes and passes away; this alone is permanent and imperishable and to
realize this Love by ceaseless diligence in the practice of the highest
righteousness, to live in it and to become fully conscious in it, is to enter
into immortality here and now, is to become one with Truth, one with God, one
with the central Heart of all things, and to know our divine and eternal
nature.
To reach this Love, to understand and experience it, one must work with
great persistency and diligence upon his heart and mind, must ever renew his
patience and keep strong his faith, for there will be much to remove, much to
accomplish, before the divine image is revealed in all its glorious
beauty.
BOOK 4: Entering the Kingdom
(Excerpts)
Those
who are at rest in the Kingdom do not look for happiness to any outward
possession. They see that all such
possessions are mere transient effects that come when they are required, and
after their purpose is served, pass away.
They never think of these things (money, clothing, food, etc.) except as
mere accessories and effects of the true Life. They are therefore freed
from all anxiety and trouble, and resting in Love, they are the embodiment of
happiness.
Standing upon the imperishable Principles of Purity, Compassion, Wisdom,
and Love, they are immortal, and they know they are immortal. They are one with God (the Supreme
Good), and know they are one with God. Seeing the realities of things, they can
find no room anywhere for condemnation.
All the operations that occur upon the earth they see as instruments of
the Good Law, even those called evil.
All men are essentially divine, though unaware of their divine nature,
and all their acts are efforts, even though many of them are dark and impotent,
to realize some higher good. All so-called evil is seen to be rooted in
ignorance, even those deeds that are called deliberately wicked, so that
condemnation ceases, and Love and Compassion become all in
all.