Skip to main content

An excerpt from The Strangest Secret By Earl Nightingale

George Bernard Shaw said, "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, they make them."

Well, it's pretty apparent, isn't it? And every person who discovered this believed (for a while) that he was the first one to work it out. We become what we think about.

Conversely, the person who has no goal, who doesn't know where he's going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety and worry - his life becomes one of frustration, fear, anxiety and worry. And if he thinks about nothing... he becomes nothing.

How does it work? Why do we become what we think about? Well, I'll tell you how it works, as far as we know. To do this, I want to tell you about a situation that parallels the human mind.

Suppose a farmer has some land, and it's good, fertile land. The land gives the farmer a choice; he may plant in that land whatever he chooses. The land doesn't care. It's up to the farmer to make the decision.

We're comparing the human mind with the land because the mind, like the land, doesn't care what you plant in it. It will return what you plant, but it doesn't care what you plant.

Now, let's say that the farmer has two seeds in his hand- one is a seed of corn, the other is nightshade, a deadly poison. He digs two little holes in the earth and he plants both seeds-one corn, the other nightshade. He covers up the holes, waters and takes care of the land...and what will happen? Invariably, the land will return what was planted.

As it's written in the Bible, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

Remember the land doesn't care. It will return poison in just as wonderful abundance as it will corn. So up come the two plants - one corn, one poison.

The human mind is far more fertile, far more incredible and mysterious than the land, but it works the same way. It doesn't care what we plant...success...or failure. A concrete, worthwhile goal...or confusion, misunderstanding, fear, anxiety and so on. But what we plant it must return to us.

You see, the human mind is the last great unexplored continent on earth. It contains riches beyond our wildest dreams. It will return anything we want to plant.
Thanks

Kovil Pillai P.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My Book Shelf - Year 2017

I find it difficult to get this reading order. And I guess it would be still harder to read them without changing the order. I may allow one or two new books to be included in this list, if required. Share book reviews and ratings with Kovil Pillai, and even join a book club on Goodreads.

The Power Game

 Even if you count from the Homo sapiens time, it has been half a million years and from the caveman life to the one who attempts to control the universe, the progress is tremendous. A number of struggles that we have overcome are unimaginable. I am still not convinced whether all these are part of the Divine plan or the Nature adjusts (if at all something is required) itself to any change that takes place in it. As long as we believe in science, we can truly appreciate our power and the things we have achieved. The oldest of the power struggles can be the one between men and women. It is perhaps so subtle that we can’t even call it a power struggle. While we manage to fight against external things, this is something happening in our own race, and we haven’t had an answer yet. A coffee selling 10 times costlier than the price of it in a decade ago may mean the coffee price has been raised. But when you compare it with the price of everything, it is relatively the same. If you look ...