THE THOUGHT-FACTOR IN ACHIEVEMENT

All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of own thought. In a justly ordered universe, where loss of equipoise would mean total destruction, individual responsibility must be absolute. Our weakness and strength, purity and impurity, are our own and not another’s. They are brought about by ourselves and not by others; and they can be altered only by ourselves, never by others. As we think, so we are: as we continue to think, so we remain.

A strong person cannot help a weaker unless that weaker is willing to be helped, and even then the weak must become strong by themselves. They must, by their efforts, develop the strength which they admire in others. They and they alone can alter their condition.

Those who have conquered weakness and have put away all selfish thoughts belong neither to oppressor nor oppressed. They are free.

We can only rise, conquer, and achieve by lifting up our thoughts. We can only remain week, abject, and miserable by refusing to lift our thoughts.

Before we can achieve anything, even in worldly things we must lift our thoughts above slavish animal indulgence. We may not, in order to succeed, give up all bestiality and selfishness by any means; but a portion of it must, at least, be sacrificed. If our first thought is bestial indulgence, we can neither think clearly nor plan methodically; we cannot find and develop our latent resources and would fail in any undertaking.

There can be no progress, no achievement, without sacrifice, and worldly success will be in the measure that we sacrifice our confused animal thoughts and fix our mind on the development of our plans and the strengthening of our resolution and self-reliance. And the higher we lift our thoughts, the more upright  and righteous we become, the greater will be our success, the more blessed and enduring will be our achievements.

 

The universe does not favour the greedy, the dishonest, the vicious, although on the mere surface it may sometimes appear to do so; it helps the honest, the magnanimous, and the virtuous. All the great teachers of the ages have declared this in varying forms, and to prove and know it we have but to persist in making ourselves more and more virtuous by lifting up our thoughts.

Intellectual achievements are the result of thought consecrated to the search for knowledge or for the beautiful and in life and nature.

Spiritual achievements are the consummation of holy aspirations. Those who live constantly in the conception of noble and lofty thoughts, who dwell upon all that is pure and unselfish , will, as surely as the sun reaches it zenith and the moon its full, be wise and noble in character and rise into positions of influence and blessedness.

Achievement, of whatever kind, is the crown of effort, the diadem of thought. By the aid of self-control, resolution, purity, righteousness, and well-directed thought we ascend; by the aid of bestiality, indolence, impurity, corruption, and confusion of thought we descend.

People may rise to high success in the world and even 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 them.

Victories attained by right thought can only be maintained by watchfulness. Many give way when success is assured and rapidly fall back into failure.

All achievements, whether in the business, intellectual, or spiritual world, are the result of definitely directed thought, are governed by the same law, and are of the same method; the only difference lies in the object of attainment.

They who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; they who would achieve much must sacrifice much; they who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.