The Life Triumphant. This book was published in and is said to be the most powerful and strength-inspiring of all Allen's works. It provides steps to rise out.
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I picked this book and started reading. I am a believer Let me tell you a real life incident. I am a believer of mind over matter, and such incidences strengthen my believe, what is within, is without. What is without, is within. Michael rated it it was amazing Oct 25, Cristina Maria Cojocariu rated it really liked it Dec 22, Tshepo rated it liked it Nov 03, Kymlee rated it it was amazing Jan 26, Connie rated it liked it Sep 12, Christina rated it it was amazing Jan 11, Tudor rated it really liked it Jan 17, Amanda Hooge rated it really liked it Aug 08, Melanie rated it liked it Jun 27, Ken Parsell rated it really liked it Mar 07, Fre rated it it was amazing Apr 04, Kolyo Kolev rated it it was amazing Sep 06, Gascjoine06 rated it liked it Jan 04, Gail Hawkins rated it it was amazing Sep 15, Micke Sandlin rated it liked it Jun 13, Zac rated it it was amazing Mar 03, Cosimo Books added it Jan 12, Paras added it Feb 05, BookDB marked it as to-read Oct 15, Kent Maerki added it Apr 10, Andrew Scollick is currently reading it Dec 11, Abe marked it as to-read Apr 12, Abe marked it as to-read Apr 14, Michelle marked it as to-read May 16, Cesar Junior added it Jul 16, So, my mind started making a mountain out of molehill torturing me.
In general circumstances, I waste hours with tormented thoughts. Today for some reason, I decided to take a different course. I picked this book and started reading. I am a believer of mind over matter, and such incidences strengthen my believe, what is within, is without. What is without, is within. One person found this helpful 2 people found this helpful.
The Life Triumphant
The author has much insight into the human mind as I have ever read. He is a sage and his writings touch the soul. One person found this helpful. James Allen has created a quick to read but very uplifting and enlighening book on becoming more in tune with our true nature. I have read it several times and get something more each time I do. I tend to like this book more than As a Man Thinketh.
In this book he goes further in depth, as to how to basically apply self-control to your life. I love James Allens writing and messages and thought. This is an old book and the language is written back in the day as they say. For me that made it a slow read. But hidden beneath that struggle is a gem.
As always his thought makes sense and is inspiring but you have to work for it in this one.
- Matthew as Story, 2nd ed.?
- The James Allen Free Library.
- The Life Triumphant: Mastering the Heart and Mind.
But he does have a way with words and his understanding of life can make anyone better who studies his works. Good but not great. The angry man is the weak man. The stubborn man, who refuses to learn or mend his ways, is the foolish man. He grows old in folly, and grey hairs do not bring him reverence or honor. The sensualist has energy for pleasure only, and reserves none for manliness and self-respect.
The greedy man is blind to the nobility of human nature and the glory of a true life; he spends his energies in perpetuating the miseries of hell, instead of enjoying the happiness of heaven. Your strength is with you, and you can spend it in burrowing downward or in climbing upward. You can dissipate it in selfishness or conserve it in goodness.
The same energy will enable you to become a beast or a god. The course along which you direct it will determine its effect. Do not think the thought, "My mind is weak," but convert weakness into strength, and energy into power by redirecting your mental forces. Turn your thoughts into noble channels. Put away vain longings and foolish regrets; abolish complaint and self-condolence, and have no dalliance with evil.
Lift your face upward. Rise up in your divine strength, and spurn from your mind and life all meanness and weakness. Do not live the false life of a whining slave, but live the true life of a conquering master. When it is gathered, focused, and forced into upward and different directions, it becomes power; and this concentration of energy and acquisition of power is brought about by means of self-control.
In speaking of self-control, one is easily misunderstood. It should not be associated with a destructive repression, but with a constructive expression. The process is not one of death, but of life. It is a divine and masterly transmutation in which the weak is converted into the strong, the coarse into the fine, and the base into the noble; in which virtue takes the place of vice, and dark passion is lost in bright intellectuality.
The man who merely smothers up and hides away his real nature, without any higher object in view than to create a good impression upon others concerning his character, is practicing hypocrisy and not self-control. A man is happy, wise, and great in the measure that he controls himself; he is wretched, foolish, and mean in the measure that he allows his animal nature to dominate his thoughts and actions.
He who controls himself controls his life, his circumstances, his destiny, and wherever he goes he carries his happiness with him as an abiding possession. He who does not control himself, is controlled by passions, by his circumstances, and his fate; and if he cannot gratify the desire of the moment, he is disappointed and miserable. He depends for his fitful happiness on external things. There is no force in the universe which can be annihilated or lost. Energy is transformed, but not destroyed. To shut the door on old and bad habits is to open it to new and better ones.
Every self-indulgence, every forbidden pleasure, every hateful thought renounced is transformed into something more purely and permanently beautiful. Where debilitating excitements are cut off, there spring up rejuvenating joys. The seed dies that the flower may appear; the grub perishes, but the dragonfly comes forth. Truly, the transformation is not instantaneous; nor is the transition a pleasant and painless process. Nature demands effort and patience as the price of growth. In the march of progress, every victory is contested with struggle and pain; but the victory is achieved, and it abides.
The struggle passes; the pain is temporary only. This is where men fail. This is where they slip back into their old, easy, animal ruts, and abandon self-control as too strenuous and severe. Thus they fall short of permanent happiness, and the life of triumph over evil is hidden from their eyes. So far as a man deviates from perfect self-command, just so far does he fall short of perfect happiness.
He sinks into misery and weakness, the lowest limit of which is madness, entire lack of mental control, the condition of irresponsibility. In so far as a man approximates to perfect self-command, just so near does he approach to perfect happiness, and rise into joy and strength. So glorious are the possiblities of such divine manhood, that no limit can be set to its grandeur and bliss.
If a man will understand how intimately, yea, how inseparably, self-control and happiness are associated, he has but to look into his own heart, and upon the world around, to find there the joy destroying effects of uncontrolled tendencies. Looking upon the lives of men and women, he will perceive how the hasty word, the bitter retort, the act of deception, the blind prejudice and foolish resentment bring wretchedness and even ruin in their train. But in the right life, the well-governed life, the victorious life, all these things pass away. New conditions obtain, and purer, more espiritual instruments are employed for the achievements of happy ends.
There is no more remorse, because there is no more wrong-doing. There is no more anxiety, because there is no more selfishness. There is no more sorrow, because Truth is the source of action. The much desired thing which self pursues with breathless and uncontrolled eagerness, yet fails to overtake, comes unbidden, and begs to be admitted, to him who works and waits in perfect self-command. Whatsoever is gained by feverish haste and selfish desire is attained in fuller measure by quietness and renunciation.
Nature will not be hastened. She brings all perfection in due season. Truth will not be commanded. He has his conditions and must be obeyed. Nothing is more superfluous than haste and anger. A man has to learn he cannot command things, but that he can command himself; that he cannot coerce the wills of others, but that he can mold and master his own will: People seek guidance of him who is master of himself. It is a little understood, yet simple and profound truth, that the man who cannot command himself under the severest external stress is unfit to guide others or to control affairs.
It is the fundamental principle in the moral and political teachings of Confucius that, before attempting to govern affairs, a man should learn to govern himself. Men who habitually give way, under pressure, to hysterical suspicions, outbursts of resentment, and explosions of anger, are unfit for weighty responsibilities and lofty duties, and usually fail, sooner or later, even in the ordinary duties of life, such as the management of their own family or business.
Lack of self-control is foolishness, and folly cannot take precedence over wisdom. He who is learning how to subdue and control his turbulent, wandering thoughts is becoming wiser every day. Though for a time the Temple of Joy will not be completed, he will gather strength in laying its foundations and building its walls; and the day will come when, like a wise master-builder, he will rest at peace in the beautiful habitation which he has built.
Wisdom inheres in self-control and in wisdom is "pleasantness and peace. The life of self-control is no barren deprivation, no wilderness of monotony. Renunciation there is, but it is a renunciation of the ephemeral and false in order that the abiding and true may be realized. Enjoyment is not cut off; it is intensified. Enjoyment is life; it is the slavish desire for it that kills. Is there anywhere a more miserable man than he who is always longing for some new sensation? Is there anywhere a more blessed being than he who, by self-control, is satisfied, calm, and enlightened?
I was once eating a ripe, juicy apple as it came from the tree, and a man near me said, "I would give anything if I could enjoy an apple like that. And as he who controls his senses has most of physical life, joy, and strength, so he who controls his thoughts has most of spiritual life, bliss, and power. For not only happiness, but knowledge and wisdom also are revealed by self-control.
As the avenues of ignorance and selfishness are closed, the open gates of knowledge and enlightenment appear. Virtue attained is knowledge gained. The pure mind is an enlightened mind. He has well-being who controls himself well. I hear men speak of the "monotony of goodness. The man of self-control does not merely give up his base pleasures, he abandons all longing for them.
He presses forward, and does not look back; and fresh beauties, new glories, sublimer vistas await him at every step. I am astonished at the revelations which lie hidden in self-control; I am captivated by the infinite variety of Truth, I am filled with joy at the grandeur of the prospect; I am gladdened by its splendor and its peace.
Along the way of self-control there is the joy of victory; the consciousness of expanding and increasing power; the acquisition of the imperishable riches of divine knowledge; and the abiding bliss of service to humankind. Even he who travels only a portion of the way will develop a strength, achieve a success, and experience a joy which the idle and the thoughtless cannot know. And he who goes all the way will become a spiritual conqueror; he will triumph over all evil, and will blot it out.
He will gaze with enrapt vision upon the majesty of the Cosmic Order, and will enjoy the immortality of Truth. You have experienced the happy relief of dispensing with such a load. Your experience illustrates the difference between a life burdened with a complexity of desires, beliefs, and speculations, and one rendered simple and free by the satisfaction of its natural needs, and a calm contemplation of the facts of existence, eliminating all argument and speculation. There are those who cumber their drawers, cupboards, and rooms with rubbish and clutter.
To such an extent is this carried sometimes, that the house cannot be properly cleaned, and vermin swarms. There is no use for the rubbish, but they will not part with it, even though by so doing, they would also get rid of the vermin. But they like to think that it is there; like to feel that they have got it, especially if they are convinced that nobody else has its like. They reason that it may be of some use someday; or it may become valuable; or it brings up old associations which they occasionally resuscitate and take a paradoxical pleasure in sorrowing over.
In a sweet, methodical, well-managed house, such superfluities, bringing with them dirt, discomfort, and care, are not allowed to accumulate. Or should they have accumulated, they are gathered up and consigned to the fire and the trash bin, when it is decided to cleanse and restore the house, and give it light, comfort, and freedom.
In a like manner men hoard up in their minds mental rubbish and clutter, cling tenaciously to it, and fear its loss. Insatiate desires; thirsty cravings for unlawful and unnatural pleasures; conflicting beliefs about miracles, gods, angels, demons, and interminable theological complexities, hypothesis is piled upon hypothesis, speculation is added to speculation, until the simple, beautiful, all-sufficient facts of life are lost to sight and knowledge beneath the metaphysical pile.
Simplicity consists in being rid of this painful confusion of desires and superfluity of opinions, and adhering only to that which is permanent and essential. And what is permanent in life? Virtue alone is permanent; character is essential. So simple is life when it is freed from all superfluities and rightly understood and lived that it can be reduced to a few unmistakable, easy-tounderstand, though hard-to-practice principles.
And all great minds have so simplified life. Buddha reduced it to eight virtues, in the practice of which he declared that men would acquire perfect enlightenment. And these eight virtues he reduced to one, which he called compassion. Confucius taught that the perfection of knowledge was contained in five virtues, and these he expressed in one which he called Reciprocity, or Sympathy.
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Jesus reduced the whole of life to the principle of Love. Compassion, Sympathy, Love, these three are identical. How simple they are, too! Yet I cannot find a man who fully understands the depths and heights of these virtues, for who so fully understood them would embody them in practice. He would be complete, perfect, divine. There would be nothing lacking in him of knowledge, virtue, and wisdom.
It is only when a man sets earnestly to work to order his life in accordance with the simple precepts of virtue, that he discovers what piles of mental rubbish he has hoarded up, and which he is now compelled to throw away. The exactions, too, which such a course of conduct make upon his faith, endurance, patience, kindness, humility, reason, and strength of will, are, until the mind approaches the necessary condition of purity and simplicity, painful in their severity.
All complexities of detail, whether in things material or mental, are reducible to a few fundamental laws or principles by virtue of which they exist and are regulated. Wise men govern their lives by a few simple rules. A life governed by the central principle of love will be found to be divinely consistent in all its details. Every thought, word, act, will fall into proper place, and there will be no conflict and confusion. I want you to tell me what is the most profound, the most subtle, and the most important thing in Buddhism.
It is true that a child of three may know it, but grey-haired old men fail to put it into practice. The commentator then goes on to say that the learned man did not want facts; he did not want Truth. He wanted to be given some subtle metaphysical speculation which would give rise to another speculation, and then to another and another, and so afford him an opportunity of bringing into play the wonderful intellect of which he was so proud. A member of a philosophical school once proudly said to me, "Our system of metaphysics is the most perfect and the most complicated in the world.
I have since learned how better to utilize my energy and occupy my time in the pursuit and practice of those virtues that are firm and sure, rather than to waste it in the spinning of the pretty but unsubstantial threads of metaphysical cobwebs. But while regarding with disfavor assumption and pride, and that vanity which mistakes its own hypothesis for reality, I set no premium on ignorance and stupidity. Learning is a good thing. As an end in itself, as a possession to be proud of, it is a dead thing; but as a means to the high ends of human progress and human good it becomes a living power.
Accompanied with a lowly mind, it is a powerful instrument for good. The Buddhist saint was no less learned than his proud questioner, but he was more simple and wise. Even hypotheses will not lead us astray if they are perceived as mere hypotheses and are not confounded with facts. Yet the wisest men dispense with all hypotheses, and fall back on the simple practice of virtue.
They thus become divine, and arrive at the acme of simplicity, enlightenment, and emancipation. To arrive at the freedom and joy of simplicity, one must not think less, he must think more; only the thinking must be set to a high and useful purpose, and must be concentrated upon the facts and duties of life, instead of dissipated in unprofitable theorizing.
A life of simplicity is simple in all its parts because the heart which governs it has become pure and strong; because it is centered and rested in Truth. The duties of life are undertaken in a spirit from which self is eliminated, and they become transfigured with a new and glorious light, even the light of Truth.
The great fundamental facts of life, heretofore hidden from knowledge, are plainly revealed, and the Eternal Verities, about which the wordy theorizers can only guess and argue, become substantial possessions. The simple-hearted, the true-hearted, the virtuous and wise, are no longer troubled with doubts and fears about the future and the unknown and unknowable. They take their stand upon the duty of the hour, and on the known and the knowable. They do not barter away the actual for the hypothetical.
They find in virtue an abiding security. They find in Truth an illuminating light which, while it reveals to them the true order of the facts of life, throws a halo of divine promise about the abyss of the unknown; and so they are at rest. Simplicity works untrammelled, and becomes greatness and power. The thought makes the man; therefore right-thinking is the most important thing in life. The essential difference between a wise man and a fool is that the wise man controls his thinking, the fool is controlled by it.
A wise man determines how and what he shall think, and does not allow external things to divert his thought from the main purpose. But a fool is carried captive by every tyrant thought as it is aroused within him by external things, and he goes through life the helpless tool of impulse, whim, and passion.
Careless, slovenly thinking, commonly called thoughtlessness, is the companion of failure, wrongdoing, and wretchedness. Nothing, no prayers, no religious ceremonies, not even acts of charity, can make up for wrong-thinking. Only right-thinking can rectify a wrong life. Only the right attitude of mind towards men and things can bring repose and peace. The Triumphant Life is only for him whose heart and intellect are attuned to lofty virtue. He must make his thought logical, sequential, harmonious, symmetrical. He must mold and shape his thinking to fixed principles, and thereby establish his life on the sure foundation of knowledge.
He must not merely be kind, he must be intelligently kind; must know why he is kind. His kindness must be an invariable quality, and not an intermittent impulse interspersed with fits of resentment and acts of harshness. He must not merely be virtuous under virtuous circumstances; his virtue must be of a kind that shall continue to shine with unabated light when he is assailed with vicious circumstances.
He must not allow himself to be hurled from the throne of divine manhood by the shocks of fate or the praise and blame of those around him. Virtue must be his abiding habitation; his refuge from the whirlwind and the storm. And virtue is not only of the heart; it is of the intellect also; and without this virtue of the intellect, the virtue of the heart is imperiled. Reason, like passion, has its vices.
Metaphysical speculations are the riot of the intellect, as sensuality is the riot of the affections. As the soaring bird returns for refuge and rest to its nest in the rock, so must the speculative thinker return to the rock of virtue for surety and peace. The intellect must be trained to comprehend the principles of virtue, and to understand all that is involved in their practice. Its energies must be restrained from wasteful indulgence in vain subtleties, and be directed in the path of righteousness and the way of wisdom.
The thinker must distinguish, in his own mind, between reality and assumption. He must discover the extent of his actual knowledge. He must know what he knows. He must also know what he does not know. He must learn to discriminate between belief and knowledge, error and Truth. In his search for the right attitude of mind which perceives truth, and works out a wise and radiant life, he must be more logical than logic, more merciless in exposing the errors of his own mind than the most sarcastic logician is in exposing the errors of the minds of others.
After pursuing this course of discrimination for a short time, he will be astonished to find how small is the extent of his actual knowledge; yet he will be gladdened by its possession, for small as it is, it is the pure gold of knowledge. And what is better, to have a few grains of gold hidden away in tons of ore, where it is useless, or to extract the gold and throw away the ore? As the miner sifts away bushels of dull earth to find the sparkling diamond, so the spiritual miner, the true thinker, sifts away from his mind the accumulation of opinions, beliefs, speculations, and assumptions to find the bright jewel of Truth which bestows upon its possessor wisdom and enlightenment.
And the concentrated knowledge which is ultimately brought to light by this sifting process is found to be so closely akin to virtue that it cannot be divided from it, cannot be set apart as something different. In his search for knowledge Socrates discovered virtue. The divine maxims of the Great Teachers are maxims of virtue. When knowledge is separated from virtue, wisdom is lost. What a man practices, that he knows. What he does not practice, that he does not know. A man may write treatises or preach sermons on Love, but if he treats his family harshly, or thinks spitefully of his enemy, what knowledge has he concerning Love?
In the heart of the man of knowledge there dwells a silent and abiding compassion that shames the fine words of the noisy theorist. He only knows what peace is whose heart is free from hatred, who lives in peace with all. Cunning definitions of virtue only serve to deepen ignorance when they proceed from vice-stained lips. Knowledge has a deeper source than the mere memorizing of information. That knowledge is divine which proceeds from acquaintance with virtue. The humility which purges the intellect of its empty opinions and vain assumptions also fortifies it with a searching insight and invincible power.
There is a divine logic which is indistinguished from love. The reply, "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone," is unanswerable logic. It is also perfect love. The wrong thinker is known by his vices; the right thinker is know by his virtues. Troubles and unrest assail the mind of the wrong thinker, and he experiences no abiding repose. He imagines that others can injure, snub, cheat, degrade and ruin him. Knowing nothing of the protection of virtue, he seeks the protection of self, and takes refuge in suspicion, spite, resentment, and retaliation, and is burnt in the fire of his own vices.
When slandered, he slanders in return; when accused, he recriminates; when assailed, he turns upon his adversary with double fierceness. The right thinker is not concerned with thoughts about self and self-protection, and the wrong actions of others towards him cannot cause him trouble or unrest. He understands that his welfare is at his own hands, and thus none but himself can rob him of repose.
Virtue is his protection, and retaliation is foreign to him. He holds himself steadfastly in peace, and resentment cannot enter his heart. Temptation does not find him unprepared, and it assails in vain the strong citadel of his mind. Abiding in virtue, he abides in strength and peace. And this is not resignation, it is wisdom. It is not indifference, but watchful and penetrating insight. He has comprehended the facts of life; he sees things as they are. He does not overlook the particulars of life, but reads them in the light of cosmic law; sees them in their right relations as portions of the universal scheme.
He sees the universe is upheld by justice. He watches, but does not engage in, the petty quarrels and fleeting strifes of men. He cannot be partisan. His sympathy is with all. He cannot favor one portion more than another. He knows that good will ultimately conquer in the world, as it has conquered in individuals; that there is a sense in which good already conquers, for evil defeats itself. Good is not defeated; justice is not set aside. Whatever man may do, justice reigns, and its eternal throne cannot be assailed and threatened, much less conquered and overthrown.
Having become righteous, he perceives the righteous law. Having acquired Love, he understands the Eternal Love. Having conquered evil, he knows that good is supreme. He is only the true thinker whose heart is free from hatred, lust, and pride; who looks out upon the world through eyes washed free from evil; whose bitterest enemy arouses no enmity, but only tender pity in his heart; who does not talk vainly about things of which he has no knowledge, and whose heart is always at peace.
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A man may be learned, but if he is not wise he will not be a true thinker. Not by learning will a man triumph over evil; not by much study will he overcome sin and sorrow. Only by conquering himself will he conquer evil; only by practicing righteousness will he put an end to sorrow. Not for the clever, nor the learned, nor the self-confident is the Life Triumphant, but for the pure, the virtuous, the wise. The former achieve their particular success in life, but the latter alone achieve the Great Success, a success so invincible and complete that even an apparent defeat shines with added victory.
Virtue cannot be shaken; virtue cannot be confounded; virtue cannot be overthrown. He who thinks in accordance with virtue, who acts righteously, whose mind is the servant of truth, he it is who conquers in life and in death. For virtue must triumph, and Righteousness and Truth are the pillars of the universe.
Hurry and excitement, anxiety and fear have no place in the purified mind and the true life. Self-conquest results in perpetual calm. Calmness is the radiant light which adds a luster to all the virtues. Like the nimbus round the head of the saint, it surrounds virtue with its shining halo. And what enduring influence can a man have who forgets himself in sinful abandonment or unseemly rage in the hour of temptation and crisis?
The virtuous put a check upon themselves, and set a watch upon their passions and emotions. In this way they gain possession of the mind, and gradually acquire calmness. And as they acquire calmness, they acquire influence, power, greatness, abiding joy, and fullness and completeness of life. Such may pray for peace with their lips, but they do not desire it in their hearts; or the word "peace" may only mean to them another kind of periodic pleasure which they desire to enjoy.
In the life of calm there are no fitful periods of sinful excitement followed by reactionary hours of sorrow and remorse. There are no foolish elations followed by equally foolish depressions; no degrading actions followed by misery and loss of selfrespect. All these things are put away, and what remains is Truth, and Truth is forever encircled with peace. The calm life is new unbroken bliss. Duties which are irksome to the ungoverned are things of joy to the calm man. Indeed, in the calm life, the word "duty" receives a new meaning. It is no longer opposed to happiness, but it is one with happiness.
The calm man, the right-seeing man, cannot separate joy from duty. Such separation belongs to the mind and life of the pleasure-hunter and lover of excitement. Calmness is difficult to attain because men cling blindly to the lower disturbances of the mind for the passing pleasure which these disturbances afford. Even sorrow is sometimes selfishly gloated over as a kind of occasional luxury. But though difficult to attain, the way which leads to its attainment is simple.
He only finds peace who conquers himself, who strives, day by day, after selfpossession, greater self-control, greater calmness of mind.