From my blog at julianmurphy.blogspot.com

This is pasted from my blog @ julianmurphy.blogspot.com

This is my first blog entry and to tell you a little bit about what I’m about I thought it best to post the answers I gave to questions about a book which changed my outlook on life.

 

1. Discuss the main ideas that you found most important in this book and discuss why they were important to you.

‘As A Man Thinketh’ by James Allen encompasses the idea that “All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts.” James Allen eloquently explains how our thoughts create our reality and that “In a justly ordered universe, where loss of equipoise would mean total destruction, individual responsibility must be absolute. A man's weakness and strength, purity and impurity, are his own and not another man's.” Before reading the book I was unsure to what extent our thoughts played in the creation of our experience. I have always believed we can do whatever we put our minds to, though I was unsure of what extent we could exercise control in the creation of our experience and by what means does one actively create? After reading this book I felt my questions were answered and life suddenly took on a whole new perspective. I felt as though I had uncovered another piece of the jigsaw puzzle of life, slotting into place a new perspective that not only helped uncover and concretize a new understanding of life but also shone light across the rest of the picture. A world of possibilities became apparent with the realization that through an effort in right thinking and observation of circumstance I could begin to experiment to see just what exactly I can create. This same observation would bring clarity to how my negative thinking affects reality and what role it has in my learning and progress.

Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.

As each day passes the message this book puts forward becomes ever increasingly apparent. “Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results.” Mentally reviewing past experiences I can see and understand the correlation between thoughts I had chosen to entertain and my circumstances. Looking at my present situation I can see how my thoughts are synchronous with the reality I see before me. At an ever increasing pace I am now seeing how quickly my thoughts change and effect my present, my future and my past. The more I practice looking at life as a reflection and part of myself the more it seems like a game where we have to remain aware and look for clues as to how to best attune ourselves to the thoughts that will allow us to interact with our situation in the most harmonious way.

Until thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment. With the majority the bark of thought is allowed to "drift" upon the ocean of life. Aimlessness is a vice, and such drifting must not continue for him who would steer clear of catastrophe and destruction.

Reading this book helped me to understand that there is no such thing as chance and that we can all take responsibility for every occurrence in our lives. Through the acceptance of responsibility we can use our current experience to design a way forward which best serves everybody. If there is nobody else to blame except ourselves then we should be thankful to all those involved in revealing what we ourselves have created.

2. Can you relate the ideas or concepts in this book to your personal circumstances in life such as your relationships, your beliefs, your goals, your values, etc? Explain.

Since reading As A Man Thinketh one of my goals now is to help as many of the people around me, as I can, to think about and use the ideas put forth in the book to construct their own viewpoint from which they can then draw conclusions. Embracing the gift of responsibility for a power which grants us control over our circumstances would change the fundamentals of society. I believe this would push us all in a more positive direction. I can vividly imagine a world where people were encouraged to think outside the construct of the societal framework, frames which less binds us together as it does section us off from the world outside of the box. If our circumstances our brought about by our thinking then it would equate that global circumstances are a reflection of our collective global thinking. If we were to fundamentally change the way we think about reality, and even learn to positively influence reality, then the world will outwardly reflect this change in thinking. My goal in life is to attune my thoughts to ones that will help turn the vision I see of a world that works for everybody into a reality.

Reading ‘As a Man Thinketh’ helped move me to one of the most exciting standpoints yet, which is that there is no such thing as chance. Looking from one angle it would not appear to me that everything is predestined. I do, however, think we co-create every situation in our lives through our thinking. Our thoughts assist in the creation of our reality and when we don’t pay attention to our thoughts and feelings then the situations our subconscious mind creates might seem random and we may use the ‘chance’ concept as a valid excuse and reason for not taking responsibility for the unwanted experience. Realizing I have no excuses for anything has been a huge turning point in my life. The idea to me makes life in my mind fair. At least for the experiences I can vouch for.

When I read the book much of what was said was immediately apparent and I had already come to a similar conclusion about some of my past experiences. About three years ago, just before I left England, I fell out with my best friend Huw who I had been friends with for ten years. One weekend in the summer of ’02 after I had just come back from a holiday with Huw and some of our other friends. In the evening a group of us came together to meet and some rather unexpected events took place. The crux of the story is that Huw decided to take somebody else’s word over mine with regards to a then recent situation. The information Huw had chosen to believe suddenly left our friendship of ten years in a less than an existent state of being. At first the situation seemed like a chance happening and I was perplexed by how such a situation could have come about, having arisen from decisions based on what I knew to be a fabrication. I felt powerless suddenly and life seemed arbitrary. I really didn’t understand how such a situation could have come about. Could it be that sometimes life was unfair? For days I was caught up in a circular mess of thoughts, searching for the cause of the situation. I started with thinking that the person who had lied to Huw was to blame and that Huw had had issues anyway. I came to various conclusions, however they all included the idea that sometimes things happen that we have no control over. This stirred more confusion in me as it was something I did not wish to believe. After really stepping out of the picture, leaving the country for Cambodia, which for me really put a new and helpful perspective on life, and then thinking about my relationship with Huw retrospectively I came to see that just as 'Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.’ life was revealing to me what unfortunate circumstances could come about as the result of a build up and accumulation of unaddressed problems throughout our relationship. I asked myself how a friend of ten years would believe this person over me and with this in mind the actual truth of the situation is in my opinion irrelevant. If I had been a good enough friend to Huw then trust would have gone without question. I had lost the trust and faith of a friend. The deterioration of my relationship with Huw had gotten out of control and manifested a situation where I was forced to pay attention. The situation had happened in such a way that it forced me to pay attention to what was important. It wasn’t anything to do with one situation. I had created my own fate way before that from all the things over the years which had built up and built up and probably already given me countless clues I should have paid attention to, until finally it was right in my face and I had to pay attention.

A man does not come to the alms-house or the jail by the tyranny of fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of groveling thoughts and base desires. Nor does a pure-minded man fall suddenly into crime by stress of any mere external force. The criminal thought had long been secretly fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its gathered power. Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself. No such conditions can exist as descending into vice and its attendant sufferings apart from vicious inclinations, or ascending into virtue and its pure happiness without the continued cultivation of virtuous aspirations; and man, therefore, as the lord and master of thought, is the maker of himself and the shaper of and author of environment. Even at birth the soul comes of its own and through every step of its earthly pilgrimage it attracts those combinations of conditions which reveal itself, which are the reflections of its own purity and impurity, its strength and weakness.

3. What are the most important new ideas or concepts you learned from this book? Please Explain.

One of the most important new ideas this book helped me grasp was the idea that there is no such thing as chance and that we are solely responsible for our personal circumstances.

After reading As a Man Thinketh it felt strongly apparent that this world of ours works in just the way it’s supposed to, indeed quite perfectly, and it would seem to me that it is us who are playing the game of life some how unaware of the rules. James Allen has given a wonderful example and explanation of how life works in perfectly fair way.

If there is no chance and our situation is brought about by our thoughts then how does that relate to a situation in life such as being diagnosed with cancer? My understanding follows that smoking does not directly cause cancer, it creates the ideal environment where a cancer could grow. It is my feeling that our thoughts and actions are intrinsically related and our mind, body and spirit are intrinsically connected and reflect one another. I believe we all have what I can at best describe as a magical force inside us. Ever seen starwars? I feel the outcome of our life depends on whether we control the force, or whether it controls us. Where does cancer come from? I think we create it. I think through our thoughts and actions and choice of lifestyle and things we choose to expose ourselves to… and through our neglect of certain areas of our life, that we cause such a thing as cancer, and indeed everything else, to manifest.

We all have the power to create some really powerful things whether it is consciously and for the greater good, or unconsciously and perhaps for the worse. I think this also works on a global level reflecting our world wide collective consciousness. I think every single one of us is responsible for the state of the world - all the conflicts of the world, or the cancers of the world, so to speak. Take for example the conflict in Iraq or the Israeli situation, the problems in South Asia… I believe it’s all a reflection of our collective state of mind and the conflicts that go on inside of us. We are in control… you, me… everybody. And we all have blood on our hands.

Paul Sartre once said that all human anguish comes from our individual responsibility for what each of us do and become. There is no fixed human nature, no predestination, no God that determines our course. And we suffer because we cannot handle this burden.

The power to think, feel, express, believe, will, do and progress is, from the start, all within our hands. This is an extremely dangerous distribution of power, and on some level we all know it. As a result, most of us sacrifice our liberties to tradition and majority in an effort to off-load that responsibility.

And we do it because we have a lot invested in our communal uniformity. Life in orthodoxy is comfortable, familiar and requires nothing of us to perpetuate it other than our silent complacency. We sell our freedom for some semblance of safety and the diaphanous concept of an establishment.

The world around us is an extension of the world inside of us. When we do wrong, we are only doing it to ourselves. I think our whole world has got cancer… and it could even look as thought it’s dying, although I hope its getting better. If you look at satellite shots of the world and look at our major cities and the pollution cloud that engulfs them, our poor world even looks like it has cancers growing on it.

Thinking about thinking and the thoughts we choose to entertain is something we all need to do carefully. Ever since reading As A Man Thinketh I’ve been realizing more and more how our thoughts create our reality. I think As a Man Thinketh should be compulsory reading for the whole human race. The more I think about it the more it makes sense.

4. Has this book challenged or changed your thinking in any way? If so, explain how?

This book has entirely changed my thinking and now I look at life from a totally different standpoint, one where I can see how I am in complete control of my circumstances. Now when I look at seemingly problematic situations I ask myself why and how I have created the situation and I ask what can be learned from the situation. Reading this book has helped me to see that when planned situations do not come together as intended, I think we should remember that the perfect thing has happened at the perfect time to teach us exactly what we need to know for the greater good of everybody. Why was the outcome the most ideal thing that could have happened? If we create our circumstances then we obviously create them for a reason and by looking for that reason we can see how our circumstances serve to benefit us, no matter what they are.

I now realize how important it is to be selective with the thoughts I allow myself to entertain. Oftentimes I am quite unsure of where the thoughts in my head come from, but now when I find myself thinking something less than constructive I stop and reword my inner dialog to shape a more positive feeling.

He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it.