Doing and Knowing - James Allen

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Big league reliability for any business. That's genius. Doing and knowing. Let a man realize that his

life in its totality proceeds from his mind. Let him realize that the mind is a combination of habits,

which he can, by patient effort, modify to any extent, and over which he can thus gain complete

ascendancy, mastery, and control. At once he will have obtained possession of the key,

which will open the door to his complete emancipation. But freedom from the ills of life,

which are the ills of one's mind, is a matter of steady growth from within, and not a sudden

acquisition from without. Hourly and daily must the mind be trained to think stainless thoughts,

and adapt right in dispassionate attitudes, under those circumstances in which it is prone to fall

into wrong and passion. Like the patient sculptor upon his marble, the aspirant to the right life

must gradually work upon the crude material of his mind, until he is wrought out of it the ideal

of his holiest dreams. In working towards such supreme accomplishment, it is necessary to begin at

the lowest and easiest steps, and proceed by natural, progressive stages to the higher and more

difficult. The law of growth progress, evolution, and unfoldment by gradual and ever ascending stages

is absolute in every department of life, and in every human accomplishment, where it is ignored,

total failure will result. In acquiring education, in learning a trade, or in pursuing a business,

this law is fully recognized and minutely abaid by all. But in acquiring virtue, in learning truth,

and in pursuing the right conduct and knowledge of life, it is unrecognized and disobeyed by nearly

all. Hence virtue, truth, and the perfect life remain unpracticed, unacquired, and unknown.

It is a common error to suppose that the higher life is a matter of reading, and the adoption

of theological or metaphysical hypotheses, and that the spiritual principles can be understood

by this method. The higher life is higher living, in thought, word, and deed, and the knowledge of

those spiritual principles, which are imminent in man and in the universe, can only be acquired

after long discipline, in the pursuit and practice of virtue. The lesser must be thoroughly grasped

and understood, before the greater can be known, practice always proceeds real knowledge.

The schoolmaster never attempts to teach his pupils the abstract principles of mathematics at the

start. He knows that such a method of teaching would be in vain, and learning impossible. He first

places before them a simple sum, and having explained it, leaves them to do it. When after repeated

failures, an ever renewed effort, they have succeeded in doing it correctly, a more difficult task is

set before them, and then another, and another. It is not until the pupils have, through many years

of diligent application, mastered all the lessons in arithmetic, that he attempts to unfold to them

the underlying mathematical principles. In learning a trade, say that of a mechanic, a boy is not

at first taught the principles of mechanics, but a simple tool is put in his hand, and he is told

how to rightly use it. He is then left to do it by effort and practice. As he succeeds implying

his tools correctly, more and more difficult tasks are set before him, until after years of successful

practice, he is prepared to study and grasp the principles of mechanics. In a properly governed

household, the child is first taught to be obedient, and to conduct himself properly under all

circumstances. The child is not even told why he must do this, but is commanded to do it.

Only after he has far succeeded in doing what is right and proper, is he told why he should do it.

No father would attempt to teach his child the principles of ethics, before extracting from him the

practice of family duty and social virtue. Thus practice ever precedes knowledge, even in the ordinary

things of the world, and in spiritual things, in the living of the higher life, this law is rigid

in its demands. Virtue can only be known by doing, and the knowledge of truth can only be arrived at

by perfecting oneself in the practice of virtue. To be complete in the practice and acquisition of

virtue is to be complete in the knowledge of truth. Truth can only be arrived at, by daily and

hourly doing the lessons of virtue, beginning with the simplest, and passing on to the more difficult.

A child patiently and obediently learns his lessons at school, by constantly practicing,

and ever exerting himself, until all failures and difficulties are surmounted. Likewise,

does the child of truth, undaunted by failure, and made stronger by difficulties,

apply himself to right doing and thought in action. As he succeeds in acquiring virtue,

his mind unfolds itself in the knowledge of truth, and it is a knowledge in which he can securely

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