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

~James Allen, As a Man Thinketh (Chapter 1)

If you read, and believe, the quotation above from James Allen’s book, As a Man Thinketh, then you have come to understand the fundamental nature of man’s ability to think, form and shape his life into any imaginable desire or goal.

If you believe this paragraph, as well, then you understand that no matter what we do – we are always creating our lives, always shaping, always forming that which surrounds us – our circumstances, in which we live.

Its true – we are always creating that which surrounds us. Your circumstances, as I mentioned in a previous post, are the surrounding evidence of your thoughts and that which you have created. The thing is, man is ALWAYS creating. Creating our circumstances is something that we do with each thought, each belief, each acceptance of each “truth” we see… and whether or not we want to, whether or not we are conscious of it and whether or not we believe it, we create. We create with our first thought in the morning and our last thought at night. We create our lives while we are idly standing in line at the grocery store, or studying and visioning the greatness that we seek. We create our lives when we tell ourselves that there is no hope, that life is unfair and that things will never get any better. We create our lives when we tell ourselves that every day, in every way, I am getting better and better, and that THIS life is the life I love to live.

You have a choice. I have a choice. We all have a choice in the outcome of our lives. We are all given that same time, that same 24 hours, that same 1,440 minutes and 86,400 seconds every day with which to make choices, with which to shape our lives and our circumstances.

“As a being of Power, Intelligence, and Love, and the lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make himself what he wills” (Allen, p 10).

How AMAZING is that? How incredible is it that we are given the POWER to choose our circumstances and our path? Conversely, how foolish is it to waste that chance, to let our lives go where they will, like water seeking the lowest point, to live a default life because you do not make the choices you are given the right to make?

It is one thing to live a default life in ignorance of the truth. When I was 15, I did not KNOW this. When I was 25, I had an idea that I could do anything I wanted to do, but I had no idea how. When I was 30, I still lived a life of reactionary ignorance and because of that, a default life that was not satisfactory, challenging, pleasing or anything like the life I wanted to live.

But now…. Now I have the tools. I marvel at every day, every moment I have that the Universe, (the Creator, God, Spirit, Yahweh, Isis or whatever your name is for the power that breathes us all into life) has given me to CREATE.

If you call that Spirit the Creator – think of this… we are all part and parcel of that Being, whatever It may be. Most of us believe that in some way, some how, that Being created life – whether through the Big Bang theory, biblical Creationalism, Darwinism or whatever it is you believe. Spirit exists to CREATE. But here we are, as human beings, literal extensions of the ultimate creator – do you think our purpose here is any less to CREATE? The drop of ocean water is still the ocean – certainly, the drop cannot contain a whale, or ALL that is the ocean, but fundamentally, it IS the ocean. It is made of the same stuff. It has the same properties. So are we drops of the Spirit, the ultimate creator in this Universe.

Allen continues on page 11, “Man is always the master, even in his weakest and most abandoned state; but in his weakness and degradation he is the foolish master who misgoverns his “household.” When he begins to reflect upon his condition, and to search diligently for the Law upon which his being is established, he then becomes the wise master, directing his energies with intelligence, and fashioning his thoughts to fruitful issues. Such is the conscious master, and man can only thus become by discovering within himself the laws of thought; which discovery is totally a matter of application, self-analysis, and experience.”

The foolish master squanders away his gifts in ignorance and laziness – he has no vision and his life is the default life, the water seeking the lowest point in which to escape. But as man realizes that he TRULY is master of his destiny, he becomes the wise master that James Allen refers to, using the Laws of Attraction to rule his own life, to shape it and live according to the fullest life he can create.