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- Herausgeber: Books on Demand
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
It is popularly supposed that a greater prosperity for individuals or nations can only come through a political and social reconstruction. This cannot be true apart from the practice of the moral virtues in the individuals that comprise a nation. Better laws and social conditions will always follow a higher realisation of morality among the individuals of a community, but no legal enactment can give prosperity to, nay it cannot prevent the ruin of, a man or a nation that has become lax and decadent in the pursuit and practice of virtue. The moral virtues are the foundation and support of prosperity as they are the soul of greatness. They endure for ever, and all the works of man which endure are built upon them. Without them there is neither strength, stability, nor substantial reality, but only ephemeral dreams. To find moral principles is to have found prosperity, greatness, truth, and is therefore to be strong, valiant, joyful and free.
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Eight pillars of prosperity
Eight pillars of prosperityPreface1. Eight pillars2. First pillar – Energy3. Second pillar – Economy4. Third pillar – Integrity5. Fourth pillar – System6. Fifth pillar – Sympathy7. Sixth pillar – Sincerity8. Seventh pillar – Impartiality9. Eighth pillar – Self-reliance10. The temple of prosperityCopyrightEight pillars of prosperity
James Allen
Preface
1. Eight pillars
Prosperity rests upon a moral foundation. It is popularly supposed to rest upon an
immoral foundation - that is, upon trickery, sharp practice, deception and greed. One
commonly hears even an otherwise intelligent man declare that “No man can be
successful in business unless he is dishonest,” thus regarding business prosperity – a good
thing – as the effect of dishonesty – a bad thing. Such a statement is superficial and
thoughtless, and reveals a total lack of knowledge of moral causation, as well as a very
limited grasp of the facts of life. It is as though one should sow henbane and reap
spinach, or erect a brick house on a quagmire - things impossible in the natural order of
causation, and therefore not to be attempted. The spiritual or moral order of causation is
not different in principle, but only in nature. The same law obtains in things unseen – in
thoughts and deeds - as in things seen – in natural phenomena. Man sees the processes in
natural objects, and acts in accordance with them, but not seeing the spiritual processes,
he imagines that they do not obtain, and so he does not act in harmony with them.
Yet these spiritual processes are just as simple and just as sure as the natural processes.
They are indeed the samenaturalmodes manifesting in the world of mind. All the
parables and a large number of the sayings of the Great Teachers are designed to
illustrate this fact. The natural world is the mental world made visible. The seen is the
mirror of the unseen. The upper half of a circle is in no way different from the lower half,
but its sphericity is reversed. The material and the mental are not two detached arcs in the
universe, they are the two halves of a complete circle. The natural and the spiritual are
not at eternal enmity, but in the true order of the universe are eternally at one. It is in the
unnatural- in the abuse of function and faculty – where division arises, and where main
is wrested back, with repeated sufferings, from the perfect circle from which he has tried
to depart. Every process in matter is also a process in mind. Every natural law has its
spiritual counterpart.
Take any natural object, and you will find its fundamental processes in the mental sphere
if you rightly search. Consider, for instance, the germination of a seed and its growth into
a plant with the final development of a flower, and back to seed again. This also is a
mental process. Thoughts are seeds which, falling in the soil of the mind, germinate and
develop until they reach the completed stage, blossoming into deeds good or bad, brilliant
or stupid, according to their nature, and ending as seeds of thought to be again sown in
other minds. A teacher is a sower of seed, a spiritual agriculturist, while he who teaches
himself is the wise farmer of his own mental plot. The growth of a thought is as the
growth of a plant. The seed must be sown seasonably, and time is required for its full
development into the plant of knowledge and the flower of wisdom.
While writing this, I pause, and turn to look through my study window, and there, a
hundred yards away, is a tall tree in the top of which some enterprising rook from a
rookery hard by, has, for the first time, built its nest. A strong, north-east wind is
blowing, so that the top of the tree is swayed violently to and fro by the onset of the blast;
yet there is no danger to that frail thing of sticks and hair, and the mother bird, sitting
upon her eggs, has no fear of the storm. Why is this? It is because the bird has
instinctively built her nest in harmony with principles which ensure the maximum
strength and security. First, a fork is chosen as the foundation for the nest, and not a space
between two separate branches, so that, however great may be the swaying of the tree
top, the position of the nest is not altered, nor its structure disturbed; then the nest is built
on a circular plan so as to offer the greatest resistance to any external pressure, as well as
to obtain more perfect compactness within, in accordance with its purpose; and so,
however the tempest may rage, the birds rest in comfort and security. This is a very
simple and familiar object, and yet, in the strict obedience of its structure to mathematical
law, it becomes, to the wise, a parable of enlightenment, teaching them that only by
ordering one’s deeds in accordance with fixed principles is perfect surety, perfect
security, and perfect peace obtained amid the uncertainty of events and the turbulent
tempests of life.
A house or a temple built by man is a much more complicated structure than a bird’s nest,
yet it is erected in accordance with those mathematical principles which are everywhere
evidenced in nature. And here is seen how man, in material things, obeys universal
principles. He never attempts to put up a building in defiance of geometrical proportions,
for he knows that such a building would be unsafe, and that the first storm would, in all
probability, level it to the ground, if, indeed, it did not fall about his ears during the
process of erection. Man in his material building scrupulously obeys the fixed principles
of circle, square and angle, and, aided by rule, plumbline, and compasses, he raises a
structure which will resist the fiercest storms, and afford him a secure shelter and safe
protection.
All this is very simple, the reader may say. Yes, it is simple because it is true and perfect;
so true that it cannot admit the smallest compromise, and so perfect that no man can
improve upon it. Man, through long experience, has learned these principles of the
material world, and sees the wisdom of obeying them, and I have thus referred to them in
order to lead up to a consideration of those fixed principles in the mental or spiritual
world which are just as simple, and just as eternally true and perfect, yet are at present so
little understood by man that he daily violates them, because ignorant of their nature, and
unconscious of the harm he is all the time inflicting upon himself.
In mind as in matter, in thoughts as in things, in deeds as in natural processes, there is a
fixed foundation of law which, if consciously or ignorantly ignored leads to disaster, and
defeat. It is, indeed, the ignorant violation of this law which is the cause of the world’s
pain and sorrow. In matter, this law is presented asmathematical;in mind, it is perceived
asmoral.But the mathematical and the moral are not separate and opposed; they are but
two aspects of a united whole. The fixed principles of mathematics, to which all matter is
subject, are the body of which the spirit is ethical; while the eternal principles of morality
are mathematical truisms operating in the universe of mind. It is as impossible to live
successfully apart from moral principles, as to build successfully while ignoring
mathematical principles. Characters, like houses, only stand firmly when built on a
foundation of moral law - and they are built up slowly and laboriously, deed by deed, for
in the building of character, the bricks are deeds. Business and all human enterprises are
not exempt from the eternal order, but can only stand securely by the observance of fixed
laws. Prosperity, to be stable and enduring, must rest on a solid foundation of moral
principle, and be supported by the adamantine pillars of sterling character and moral
worth. In the attempt to run a business in defiance of moral principles, disaster, of one
kind or another, is inevitable. The permanently prosperous men in any community are not
its tricksters and deceivers, but its reliable and upright men. The Quakers are
acknowledged to be the most upright men in the British community, and, although their
numbers are small, they are the most prosperous. The Jains in India are similar both in
numbers and sterling worth, and they are the most prosperous people in India.
Men speak of “building up a business,” and, indeed, a business is as much a building as is
a brick house or a stone church, albeit the process of building is a mental one. Prosperity,
like a house, is a roof over a man’s head, affording him protection and comfort. A roof
presupposes a support, and a support necessitates a foundation. The roof of prosperity,
then, is supported by the following eight pillars which are cemented in a foundation of
moral consistency:-
1. Energy
2. Economy
3. Integrity
4. System
5. Sympathy
6. Sincerity
7. Impartiality
8. Self-reliance
A business built up on the faultless practice of all these principles would be so firm and
enduring as to be invincible. Nothing could injure it; nothing could undermine its
prosperity, nothing could interrupt its success, or bring it to the ground; but that success
would be assured with incessant increase so long as the principles were adhered to. On
the other hand, where these principles were all absent, there could be no success of any
kind; there could not even be a business at all, for there would be nothing to produce the
adherence of one part with another; but there would be that lack of life, that absence of
fibre and consistency which animates and gives body and form to anything whatsoever.
Picture a man with all these principles absent from his mind, his daily life, and even if
your knowledge of these principles is but slight and imperfect, yet you could not think of
such a man as doing any successful work. You could picture him as leading the confused
life of a shiftless tramp but to imagine him at the head of a business, as the centre of an
organisation, or as a responsible and controlling agent in any department of life – this you
could not do, because you realise its impossibility. The fact that no one of moderate
morality and intelligence can think of such a man as commanding any success, should, to
all those who have not yet grasped the import of these principles, and therefore declare
that morality is not a factor, but rather a hindrance, in prosperity, be a sound proof to
them that their conclusion is totally wrong, for if it was right, then the greater the lack of
these moral principles, the greater would be the success.
These eight principles, then, in greater or lesser degree, are the causative factors in all
success of whatsoever kind. Underneath all prosperity they are the strong supports, and,
howsoever appearances may be against such a conclusion, a measure of them informs and
sustains every effort which is crowned with that excellence which men name success.
It is true that comparatively few successful men practice, in their entirety and perfection,
all these eight principles, but there are those who do, and they are the leaders, teachers,
and guides of men, the supports of human society, and the strong pioneers in the van of
human evolution.
But while few achieve that moral perfection which ensures the acme of success, all lesser
successes come from the partial observance of these principles which are so powerful in
the production of good results that even perfection in any two or three of them alone is
sufficient to ensure an ordinary degree of prosperity, and maintain a measure of local
influence at least for a time, while the same perfection in two or three with partial
excellence in all, or nearly all, the others, will render permanent that limited success and
influence which will, necessarily, grow and extend in exact ratio with a more intimate
knowledge and practice of those principles which, at present, are only partially
incorporated in the character.
The boundary lines of a man’s morality mark the limits of his success. So true is this that
to know a man’s moral status would be to know – to mathematically gauge – his ultimate
success or failure. The temple of prosperity only stands in so far as it is supported by its
moral pillars; as they are weakened, it becomes insecure; in so far as they are withdrawn,
it crumbles away and totters to ruin.
Ultimate failure and defeat are inevitable where moral principles are ignored or defied –
inevitable in the nature of things as cause and effect. As a stone thrown upward returns to
the earth, so every deed, good or bad, returns upon him that sent it forth. Every unmoral
or immoral act frustrates the end at which it aims, and every such succeeding act puts it
further and further away as an achieved realisation. On the other hand, every moral act is
another solid brick in the temple of prosperity, another round of strength and sculptured
beauty in the pillars which support it.
Individuals, families, nations grow and prosper in harmony with their growth in moral
strength and knowledge; they fall and fail in accordance with their moral decadence.
Mentally, as physically, only that which has form and solidity can stand and endure. The
unmoral is nothingness, and from it nothing can be formed. It is the negation of
substance. The immoral is destruction. It is the negation of form. It is a process of
spiritual denudation. While it undermines and disintegrates, it leaves the scattered
material ready for the wise builder to put it into form again; and the wise builder is
Morality.The moral is substance, form, and building power in one. Morality always
builds up and preserves, for that is its nature, being the opposite of immorality, which
always breaks down and destroys. Morality is the master–builder everywhere, whether in
individuals or nations.
Morality is invincible, and he who stands upon it to the end, stands upon an impregnable
rock, so that his defeat is impossible, his triumph certain. He will be tried, and that to the
uttermost, for without fighting there can be no victory, and so only can his moral powers
be perfected, and it is in the nature of fixed principles, as of everything finely and
perfectly wrought, to have their strength tested and proved. The steel bars which are to
perform the strongest and best uses in the world must be subjected to a severe strain by
the ironmaster, as a test of their texture and efficiency, before they are sent from his
foundry. The brickmaker throws aside the bricks which have given way under the severe
heat. So he who is to be greatly and permanently successful will pass through the strain
of adverse circumstances and the fire of temptation with his moral nature not merely not
undermined, but strengthened and beautified. He will be like a bar of well-wrought steel,
fit for the highest use, and the universe will see, as the ironmaster his finely-wrought
steel, that the use does not escape him.
Immorality is assailable at every point, and he who tries to stand upon it, sinks into the
morass of desolation. Even while his efforts seem to stand, they are crumbling away. The
climax of failure is inevitable. While the immoral man is chuckling over his ill-gotten
gains, there is already a hole in his pocket through which his gold is falling. While he
who begins with morality, yet deserts it for gain in the hour of trial, is like the brick
which breaks on the first application of heat; he is not fit for use, and the universe casts
him aside, yet not finally, for he is a being, and not a brick; and he can live and learn, can
repent and be restored.
Moral force is the life of all success, and the sustaining element in all prosperity; but
there are various kinds of success, and it is frequently necessary that a man should fail in
one direction that he may reach up to a greater and more far-reaching success. If, for
instance, a literary, artistic, or spiritual genius should begin by trying to make money, it
may be, and often is, to his advantage and the betterment of his genius that he should fail
therein, so that he may achieve that more sublime success wherein lies his real power.
Many a millionaire would doubtless be willing to barter his millions for the literary
success of a Shakespeare or the spiritual success of a Buddha, and would thereby
consider that he had made a good bargain. Exceptional spiritual success is rarely
accompanied with riches, yet financial success cannot in any way compare with it in
greatness and grandeur. But I am not, in this book, dealing with the success of the saint or
spiritual genius but with that success which concerns the welfare, well-being, and
happiness of the broadly average man and woman, in a word, with the prosperity which,
while being more or less connected with money – being present and temporal – yet is not
confined thereto, but extends to and embraces all human activities, and which particularly
relates to that harmony of the individual with his circumstances which produces that
satisfaction called happiness and that comfort known as prosperity. To the achievement
of this end, so desirable to the mass of mankind, let us now see how the eight principles
operate, how the roof of prosperity is raised and made secure upon the pillars by which it
is supported.
2. First pillar – Energy
Energy is the working power in all achievement. Inert coal it converts into fire, and water
it transmutes into steam; it vivifies and intensifies the commonest talent until it
approaches to genius, and when it touches the mind of the dullard, it turns into a living
fire that which before was sleeping in inertia.
Energy is a moral virtue, its opposing vice being laziness. As a virtue, it can be
cultivated, and the lazy man can become energetic by forcibly arousing himself to
exertion. Compared with the energetic man, the lazy man is not half alive. Even while the
latter is talking about the difficult of doing a thing, the former is doing it. the active man
has done a considerable amount of work before the lazy man has roused himself from
sleep. While the lazy man is waiting for an opportunity, the active man has gone out, and
