One of the grandest words in the universe is Man! One of the most glorious conceptions is man as he should be! But the name and the conception have alike suffered the degradation these generations have seen fit to bestow upon all sacred mysteries. Not so was it with the ancients, and in our own day there are still they who have carried down the inward memory of its true meaning from past ages. To them the real man is indeed the Thinker, the Soul, a center of divine force manifesting in the outward world his own inward being, according to the power he has gained over the universe in which he dwells. For man the thinker creates his own universe, and it is bright, full, boundless and free in proportion to the power he has of realizing in the outer the true glories of the inner world, the Soul which he is.
"What a man thinks that he becomes," is a key to the power which he possesses to mold his destiny.
Man holds, in that which constitutes him man, the power of thought, an instrument or faculty by means of which he accomplishes this end. He holds his future in his own hands. Today he is what he is because he has lost the secret of life, the knowledge that he is a divine being, with all the powers of a divinity to create a new heaven and a new earth.
This truth however is not lost to the world; through untold ages it has been handed down, concealed in symbol, glyph, allegory, tradition, from the enemies of human progress which ever war against it. It is at the root of all religions, and from the holy of holies, the temple of the heart, always to the attentive ear rings out the cry, "Arise! put on thy strength, seize thy immortality! — Man, know thyself!"
No knowledge is real until we have made it a part of our own lives. To know a truth, we have to become it. Only the merciful man knows mercy — only the hero knows strength. To know freedom one must become free, and to know soul and soul life man must put away the erroneous and misleading doctrine that he has a soul, a misty something somewhere, and realize that he is a soul, live in the knowledge of that, and act accordingly. When man once sets out to this end there will be no necessity to look forward to a heavenly kingdom in the far-off future, for that kingdom will then have come for him upon earth.
Full well the great Teachers of old knew that this could not be accomplished without a struggle, full well the faithful disciple realized that unless he conquered his lower nature and bent his whole will to the effort the result would be failure; for from the moment he determined with earnest resolve to know himself and seize on the living and immortal fire, his mind and his whole being would become a battle field whereon he must meet the contending foes of good and evil and fight out the battle until in his divine nature he shall stand victorious.
So it is the Soul Man who has the power to consciously direct and mold his destiny, to direct and mold it through Thought — the Power of Thought is one of the mightiest in the universe, and perhaps one of the least understood.
In the trained will and imagination, the outcome of which is strong, vivid, intense thought, man possesses a power he as yet hardly realizes. Even from the ordinary mind every thought is a living impulse sent out into the world to work for weal or woe. Every time man thinks he creates on the mental plane a center of force clothed by the imagination and vivified by the will concentrated upon it. Since man has lost sight of this fact — the living substantiality of thought and thoughts — his creations have become in many instances vague, shadowy, almost lifeless and calculated to do very little, but generally confuse and obstruct the course of soul evolution; but in the man who possesses knowledge, thought becomes a more positive help or danger. For as in him the life impulse is working with greater strength, so his thought creations, partaking of his life essence, become greater powers for the degradation or uplifting of humanity. So therefore malicious or careless thinking is as much a crime against our brother as is the evil or careless use of poisons, or the careless spread of disease.
The outward manifestation of each man, his surrounding circumstances, capacity for work, his power for good or evil, his position in the social, intellectual and moral world, his failures and successes, and the impressions he makes upon the world in each succeeding incarnation, are but the outward expressions of the Inner man, and his thoughts.
Only what a man lives for, that he gains. He who fearlessly demands at all costs a large and grand Spiritual Life and raises his mental attitude to the height of his ideal and by persistently living in that, will assuredly command it, and endow it with life and strength sufficient to secure in all its glory its ultimate fulfillment in the physical world. And as his ideal grows in beauty and grandeur, so the outer appearance will grow with it. So attempt the impossible, see it as a complete success — and succeed, this is possible for all, for man is himself that immutable, invincible power which carves out his own destiny.