Da ein Mann Thinketh durch James Allen, ein Buch, das 1902 veröffentlicht wird, ein Klassiker im Self-developmentgenren ist.

Über 100 Jahren alt und noch fristgerecht. Ich beabsichtige, zu sein der selbe! (Gespräch auf Langlebigkeit, plus, wie einem feinen Wein `, das mit Alter', sogar besser erhält noch zu kommen!)

Das Buch öffnet sich mit der Aussage:

Verstand ist die Vorlagenenergie, die und Marken formt,
Und Mann ist Verstand und immer nimmt er
Das Werkzeug des Gedankens und, formend, was er willt,
Holt weiter tausend Freuden, tausend Kranken: -
Er denkt im Geheimnis und es kommt zu überschreiten:
Klima ist aber sein Schauenglas.

Dieser letzte Satz erinnert mich an Alice im Märchenland.

Ich schätze auch die große Schönheit und Energie dieser Wörter und sie erinnern mich an den Kaffee von Träumen:

Die Träumer sind die Retter der Welt. Während die sichtbare Welt vom unsichtbaren, also von den Männern, durch alle ihre Versuche und Sünden und sordid Berufungen unterstützt wird, werden durch die schönen Anblicke ihrer alleinen Träumer ernährt. Menschlichkeit kann nicht seine Träumer vergessen. Es kann nicht ihre Ideale lassen verbläßt und stirbt. Es lebt in ihnen. Es kennt sie in den Wirklichkeiten, die es ein Tag sieht und kennt.

Komponist, Sculptor, Maler, Dichter, Prophet, Salbei, diese sind die Hersteller des afterworld, die Architekten des Himmels. Die Welt ist schön, weil sie gelebt haben; ohne sie würde bearbeitenmenschlichkeit umkommen.

Er, der einen schönen Anblick schätzt, ein erhabenes ideales in seinem Herzen, ein Tag verwirklicht es. Columbus schätzte einen Anblick einer anderen Welt, und er entdeckte ihn. Kopernikus förderte den Anblick einer Vielfältigkeit der Welten und des breiteren Universums, und er deckte es auf. Buddha erblickte den Anblick einer geistigen Welt der rostfreien Schönheit und des vollkommenen Friedens, und er nahm an ihr teil.

Schätzen Sie Ihre Anblicke. Schätzen Sie Ihre Ideale. Schätzen Sie die Musik, die in Ihrem Herzen sich rührt, die Schönheit, die in Ihrem Verstand sich bildet, die Lieblichkeit, die Ihre reinsten Gedanken drapiert, denn aus ihnen heraus wächst alle herrlichen Bedingungen, alles himmlische Klima; von diesen wenn Sie aber zu ihnen zutreffend bleiben, wird Ihre Welt schließlich errichtet.

Zu wünschen ist zu erreichen; zu streben ist zu erzielen. Shall man’s basest desires receive the fullest measure of gratification, and his purest aspirations starve for lack of sustenance? Such is not the Law. Such a condition of things can never obtain - “Ask and receive.”

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be. Your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.

The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.

Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long remain so if you but perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without. Here is a youth hard pressed by poverty and labor; confined long hours in an unhealthy workshop; unschooled, and lacking all the arts of refinement. But he dreams of better things. He thinks of intelligence, of refinement, of grace and beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal condition of life. The vision of the wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him; unrest urges him to action, and he utilizes all his spare time and means, small though they are, to the development of his latent powers and resources.

Very soon so altered has his mind become that the workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony with his mentality that it falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside, and with the growth of opportunities which fit the scope of his expanding powers, he passes out of it forever.

Years later we see this youth as a full-grown man. We find him a master of certain forces of the mind which he wields with world-wide influence and almost unequaled power. In his hands he holds the cords of gigantic responsibilities. He speaks, and lo! lives are changed. Men and women hang upon his words and remold their characters, and, sunlike, he becomes the fixed and luminous center around which innumerable destinies revolve. He has realized the Vision of his youth. He has become one with his Ideal.

And you, too, youthful reader, will realize the Vision (not the idle wish) of your heart, be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both, for you will always gravitate toward that which you secretly most love. Into your hands will be placed the exact results of your own thoughts; you will receive that which you earn, no more, no less. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts, your Vision, your Ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.

In the beautiful words of Stanton Kirkham Dave, “You may be keeping accounts, and presently you shall walk out of the door that for so long has seemed to you the barrier of your ideals, and shall find yourself before an audience - the pen still behind your ear, the ink stains on your fingers - and then and there shall pour out the torrent of your inspiration. You may be driving sheep, and you shall wander to the city - bucolic and open mouthed; shall wander under the intrepid guidance of the spirit into the studio of the master, and after a time he shall say, ‘I have nothing more to teach you.’ And now you have become the master, who did so recently dream of great things while driving sheep. You shall lay down the saw and the plane to take upon yourself the regeneration of the world.”

The thoughtless, the ignorant, and the indolent, seeing only the apparent effects of things and not the things themselves, talk of luck, of fortune, and chance. See a man grow rich, they say, “How lucky he is!” Observing another become intellectual, they exclaim, “How highly favored he is!” And noting the saintly character and wide influence of another, the remark, “How chance aids him at every turn!”

They do not see the trials and failures and struggles which these men have voluntarily encountered in order to gain their experience. They have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have made, of the undaunted efforts they have put forth, of the faith they have exercised, that they might overcome the apparently insurmountable, and realize the Vision of their heart. They do not know the darkness and the heartaches; they only see the light and joy, and call it “luck”; do not see the long and arduous journey, but only behold the pleasant goal, and call it “good fortune”; do not understand the process, but only perceive the result, and call it “chance.”

In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. “Gifts,” powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort. They are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized.

The vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart - this you will build your life by, this you will become.

I be-hold the vision of Cyres Cafe to its highest expression, joy-fully pour my heart and soul into it, and enter it every day. In every way, I Am Cyres Cafe and it is my intention to live in the fullest expression of me possible.

Indeed, As A Wo/Man Thinketh (and Feeleth ;-))