Visions And Ideals
by James A Allen
The dreamers are the saviors of the world. As the visible world is
sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins
and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their
solitary dreamers. Humanity cannot forget its dreamers; it cannot let
their ideals fade and die; it lives in them; it knows them as the
realities which it shall one day see and know.
Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage--these are the
makers of the after-world, the architects of heaven. The world is
beautiful because they have lived. Without them, laboring humanity
would perish.
He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will
one day realize it. Columbus cherished a vision of another world and
he discovered it. Copernicus fostered the vision of a multiplicity of
worlds and a wider universe, and he revealed it.
Buddha beheld the vision of a spiritual world of stainless beauty and
perfect peace, and he entered into it.
Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that
stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the
loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts. For out of them will
grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these,
if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.
To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to achieve. 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 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 a
soul a waking angle stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.
Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not remain so
if you only 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, or refinement, of grace and
beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal condition of
life.
The wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him; unrest
urges him to action, and he uses all his spare times and means 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 mind-set that it falls out of his
life as a garment is cast aside. And with the growth of opportunities
that fit the scope of his
expanding powers, he passes out of it altogether. Years later we see
this youth as a grown man. We find him a master of certain forces of
the mind that he wields with worldwide influence and almost unequaled
power. In his hands he holds the cords of gigantic responsibilities;
he speaks and lives are changed; men and women hang upon his words
and remold their characters. Sun-like, 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, will realize the vision (not just 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 love most. 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.
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. Seeing a man grow rich, they say, "How
lucky he is!" Observing another become skilled intellectually, they
exclaim, "How highly favored he is!" And noting the saintly character
and wide influence of another, they remark, "How chance helps him at
every turn!" They do not see the trials and failures and struggles
which these men have 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 so 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, 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. The
strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Change is not.
Gifts, powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are
the fruits of effort. They are thoughts completed, objectives
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.
by James A Allen
The dreamers are the saviors of the world. As the visible world is
sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins
and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their
solitary dreamers. Humanity cannot forget its dreamers; it cannot let
their ideals fade and die; it lives in them; it knows them as the
realities which it shall one day see and know.
Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage--these are the
makers of the after-world, the architects of heaven. The world is
beautiful because they have lived. Without them, laboring humanity
would perish.
He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will
one day realize it. Columbus cherished a vision of another world and
he discovered it. Copernicus fostered the vision of a multiplicity of
worlds and a wider universe, and he revealed it.
Buddha beheld the vision of a spiritual world of stainless beauty and
perfect peace, and he entered into it.
Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that
stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the
loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts. For out of them will
grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these,
if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.
To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to achieve. 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 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 a
soul a waking angle stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.
Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not remain so
if you only 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, or refinement, of grace and
beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal condition of
life.
The wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him; unrest
urges him to action, and he uses all his spare times and means 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 mind-set that it falls out of his
life as a garment is cast aside. And with the growth of opportunities
that fit the scope of his
expanding powers, he passes out of it altogether. Years later we see
this youth as a grown man. We find him a master of certain forces of
the mind that he wields with worldwide influence and almost unequaled
power. In his hands he holds the cords of gigantic responsibilities;
he speaks and lives are changed; men and women hang upon his words
and remold their characters. Sun-like, 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, will realize the vision (not just 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 love most. 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.
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. Seeing a man grow rich, they say, "How
lucky he is!" Observing another become skilled intellectually, they
exclaim, "How highly favored he is!" And noting the saintly character
and wide influence of another, they remark, "How chance helps him at
every turn!" They do not see the trials and failures and struggles
which these men have 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 so 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, 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. The
strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Change is not.
Gifts, powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are
the fruits of effort. They are thoughts completed, objectives
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.