Tom Butler-Bowdon [Butler-Bowdon - 50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life From Timeless Sages to Contemporary Gurus

To each of the authors: Thank you writing your classic and for your unique contributions to personal development. Ive had a great time reading your books and telling other people about them.

To the publishers: Thank you for your commitment to a field of writing that has never, despite its popularity, had much critical attention. I hope that this book will generate even more readers for your titles.

To Tamara Lucas: Thanks for your love and inspiration, and for putting up with the computer in the evenings.

To Marion Butler-Bowdon: Thanks for so much over the last 35 years, and for being the books greatest promoter.

To Noah and Beatrice Lucas: Thanks for your continued support and interest in what I do.

To Nick Brealey of Nicholas Brealey Publishing: Thanks for your insights, enthusiasm, and close attention to the work, and Sally Lansdell for editing.

And for others who have given feedback, words of encouragement, or a sense of perspective, recently and over the years: Andrew Arsenian, Andrew Chang, John Melville, Giselle Rosario, my siblings Caroline, Teresa, Charles, Edward, Piers, and Richard and their partners Charles, Will, Valerie, Kate, Tammy, and Ruth, my nieces and nephews Celeste, Caleb, Jacob, Toby, and Conrad, the Pollocks Joy, Norman, Jane, Cathy, Adrian, and Roger, the Taylors Maurice, Barbara, Howard, and Jessica, the Misaks Sonia, Albert, Natan, and Raphael, Sarah Raven-scroft, Humphrey Butler-Bowdon, Paul Goose, Fitzroy Boulting, Richard Koch, Ronnie Gramazio, Frazer Kirkman, Pria Mitra, Ian Hunter, Nick Harford, Tom Magarey, David Meegan, and Yvette, Rosemary, Karen, and Isobel at OCC. This book is also inspired by my father Anthony William Butler-Bowdon (19132001).

50 Self-Help Classics

Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul that have been restored and brought to light in this age, none is more gladdening or fruitful of divine promise and confidence than thisthat you are the master of your thought, the molder of your character, and the maker and shaper of your condition, environment and destiny.

Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results We understand this law in the natural world, and work with it; but few understand it in the mental and moral worldalthough its operation there is just as simple and undeviatingand they, therefore, do not cooperate with it.

Law, not confusion, is the dominating principle in the universe; justice, not injustice, is the soul and substance of life; and righteousness, not corruption, is the molding and moving force in the spiritual government of the world. This being so, we have to but right ourselves to find that the universe is right.

In a nutshell

We dont attract what we want, but what we are. Only by changing your thoughts will you change your life.

In a similar vein

Joseph Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (p222)
Florence Scovell Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It (p258)

With its theme that mind is the master weaver, creating our inner character and outer circumstances, As a Man Thinketh is an in-depth exploration of the central idea of self-help writing. James Allens contribution was to take an assumption we all sharethat because we are not robots we therefore control our thoughtsand reveal its fallacy. Because most of us believe that mind is separate from matter, we think that thoughts can be hidden and made powerless; this allows us to think one way and act another. However, Allen believed that the unconscious mind generates as much action as the conscious mind, and while we may be able to sustain the illusion of control through the conscious mind alone, in reality we are continually faced with a question: Why cannot I make myself do this or achieve that?

In noting that desire and will are sabotaged by the presence of thoughts that do not accord with desire, Allen was led to the startling conclusion: We do not attract what we want, but what we are. Achievement happens because you as a person embody the external achievement; you dont get success but become it. There is no gap between mind and matter.

The logic of the book is unassailable: Noble thoughts make a noble person, negative thoughts hammer out a miserable one. To a person mired in negativity, the world looks as if it is made of confusion and fear. On the other hand, Allen noted, when we curtail our negative and destructive thoughts, All the world softens towards us, and is ready to help us.

We attract not only what we love, but also what we fear. His explanation for why this happens is simple: Those thoughts that receive our attention, good or bad, go into the unconscious to become the fuel for later events in the real world. As Emerson commented, A person is what he thinks about all day long.

Part of the fame of Allens book is its contention that Circumstances do not make a person, they reveal him. This seems an exceedingly heartless comment, a justification for neglect of those in need, and a rationalization of exploitation and abuse, of the superiority of those at the top of the pile and the inferiority of those at the bottom.

This, however, would be a knee-jerk reaction to a subtle argument. Each set of circumstances, however bad, offers a unique opportunity for growth. If circumstances always determined the life and prospects of people, then humanity would never have progressed. In fact, circumstances seem to be designed to bring out the best in us, and if we make the decision that we have been wronged then we are unlikely to begin a conscious effort to escape from our situation. Nevertheless, as any biographer knows, a persons early life and its conditions are often the greatest gift to an individual.

The sobering aspect of Allens book is that we have no one else to blame for our present condition except ourselves. The upside is the possibilities contained in knowing that everything is up to us; where before we were experts in the array and fearsomeness of limitations, now we become connoisseurs of what is possible.

While Allen did not deny that poverty can happen to a person or a people, what he tried to make clear is that defensive actions such as blaming the perpetrator will only run the wheels further into the rut. What measures us, what reveals us, is how we use those circumstances as an aid or spur to progress. A successful person or community, in short, is one who is most efficient at processing failure.

Allen observed, Most of us are anxious to improve our circumstances, but are unwilling to improve ourselvesand we therefore remain bound. Prosperity and happiness cannot happen when the old self is still stuck in its old ways. People are nearly always the unconscious cause of their own lack of prosperity.

The influence of Buddhism on Allens thought is obvious in his emphasis on right thinking, but it is also apparent in his suggestion that the best path to success is calmness of mind. People who are calm, relaxed, and purposeful appear as if that is their natural state, but nearly always it is the fruit of self-control.

These people have advanced knowledge of how thought works, coming from years of literally thinking about thought. According to Allen, they have a magnet-like attraction because they are not swept up by every little wind of happenstance. We turn to them because they are masters of themselves. Tempest-tossed souls battle to gain success, but success avoids the unstable.