The Mind As A Garden

There are certain books that are timeless. I can read them many times and find a new pearl buried deep inside them each time I open the books. James Allen's As A Man Thinketh
(get a free download) is such a book. In 1987 I was a lonely obstetrician gynecologist in Cobbleskill, a village in Schoharie County, New York. I was the only obstetrician in the county. I could not go on vacation. My pastime was visiting the small bookstore in town and browsing through the books on the shelves. One day, I stumbled on "As a Man Thinketh." I bought it. This book has been my reading material almost every day. I will stand in my bathroom, read one chapter aloud before exercising. It gave me, and continues to give me the strength to stay in the mind body groove. James Allen used a garden metaphor to describe the mind.

"A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must and will bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind. Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires, so may a man tend to the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless and impure thoughts, and cultivating towards perfection, the flowers and fruits of right, useful and pure thoughts. by pursuing this process, a man sooner discovers he is the master gardener of his soul, the director of his life. he also reveals within himself, the laws of thought and understands, with ever increasing accuracy, how the thought forces operate in the shaping of his character and circumstances and destiny."

The book's objective is to impress upon us that we are what we think. That our achievements and failures have one source- the mind. "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he." " A noble and Godlike character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in the right thinking, the effect of long cherished association with Godlike thoughts." How true this is. This free book has more pearls for you. I hope you read it over and over again till you get the gist of it. Add it to the tools you use to prune the thorns from your mind's garden.