THE THOUGHT-FACTOR IN ACHIEVEMENT

	   All that a man or woman achieves and all that s/he fails to
	achieve is the direct result of his or her own thoughts.  In a
	justly ordered universe, where loss of equipoise would mean total
	destruction, individual responsibility must be absolute.  One's
	weakness and strength, purity and impurity, is one's own, and not
        another's; they are brought about by oneself, and not by another;
	and they can only be altered by oneself, never by another.  One's
	condition is also one's own, and not another's.  One's suffering
	and one's happiness are evolved from within.  As one thinks, so
	one is; as one continues to think, so one remains.
	   A strong man or woman cannot help a weaker unless that weaker is 
	willing to be helped, and even then the weak one must become
	strong of himself or herself; s/he must, by his own efforts, de-
	velop the strength which s/he admires in another.  None but himself
	or herself can alter the weak condition.
	   It has been usual for men to think and say, "Many men are
	slaves because one is an oppressor; let us hate the oppressor."
	Now, however, there is among an increasing few a tendency to
	reverse this judgment, and to say, "One man is an oppressor be-
	cause many are slaves; let us despise the slaves."  The truth is
	that oppressor and slave are co”perators in ignorance, and, while
	seeming to afflict each other, are in reality afflicting them-
	selves.  A perfect Knowledge perceives the action of law in the
	weakness of the oppressed and the misapplied power of the op-
	pressor; a perfect Love, seeing the suffering which both states
	entail, condemns neither; a perfect Compassion embraces both op-
	pressor and oppressed.
	   S/He who has conquered weakness, and has put away all selfish
	thoughts, belongs neither to oppressor nor oppressed.  S/He is free.
	   A person can only risk, conquer, and achieve by lifting up his
	or her thoughts.  S/He can only remain weak, and abject, and miser-
	able by refusing to lift up his/her thoughts.

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	SUPPLEMENTAL A
        re: "Justly ordered universe" -- cf The Left Hand of Creation:
	     The Origin and Evolution of the Expanding Universe, by John
	     D. Barrow and Joseph Silk.  Prologue, page x

	SUPPLEMENTAL B
	re: today's lesson -- see my essay "Holy Spirit"

	SUPPLEMENTAL C
	re: footnote 3b below (facing of truth) -- excerpt from preface to
	    Crucial Issues in Education (1969), quoting Ralph Waldo
	    Emerson.


	Questions:  
	1.  What does the word achievement mean?

	2.  Do you think that it is significant that the word "achievement"
	    cannot be located in my computerized King James Version Bible?
	    What significance do you think it speaks of?

	3.  Does it bother anybody that the author seems to pretend that
            he understands what "perfect Knowledge" is?  Or, perhaps, is
	    he just throwing this out as his hypothesis:  that James Allen
	    really doesn't know what he is talking about?  (regarding his
	    statement about what perfect Knowledge perceives)

	3a.  UNISON PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION - from church bulletin:

		From the cowardice that dares not face new truth,
		from the laziness that is contented with half-truth,
		from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
		Gracious God, deliver us.  Amen.

	3b.  Regarding the facing of truth above, see supplemental C.