James Allen’s prior book, As a Man Thinketh, is one of my favorite books of all time, and The Path to Prosperity is his lesser-known follow-up book — one that I found almost as spectacular as his first.
There was actually a time when I used to re-read As a Man Thinketh every single year (it’s very short — you can read it in just a few hours), and I have a feeling I’ll be coming back to this one again and again as well.
For such a short book (it’s only 71 pages), the sheer density of wisdom and insight is just tremendous. I have what, 7 pages of notes? From a 71-page book! Here I was, just copying out passage after passage, putting the book down again and again to record something awesome on nearly every page.
The basic idea of As a Man Thinketh is that our thoughts are like a garden, and that we can choose what we plant there. Not only can we choose what gets planted there, but what gets planted there will grow.
Thoughts of goodness and happiness, love and affection, and wealth and prosperity lead to their equivalent expressions in the external world. Sure, maybe not on a 1:1 basis (this isn’t a book on “manifesting” or “getting rich overnight” or anything like that), but on a long-enough timescale, we become what we think about most of the time.
Most importantly, we can choose what we think about, and we should be extraordinarily careful about what gets planted in the garden of our mind.
Again, it’s not so much about thinking thoughts of making a million dollars and then seeing it in your bank account, although both James Allen and I would never discount the value of external riches. We can do a lot of good with our wealth, if we want to. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being financially rich.
But Allen’s books are more about the development of a noble character, through a process of guarding one’s thoughts against evil and pettiness, greed and envy, pessimism and despair — about choosing instead an inner world of love, hope, and generosity.
It’s a mental process that’s almost completely under our own personal control, and our choices of which thoughts to think are among the most important choices we’ll ever make.
Here in this article are the 11 most important takeaways (and 13 additional takeaways) I’ve selected that’ll give you an idea of whether or not The Path to Prosperity is a book you’ll want to read for yourself…
Takeaway #1: Scorched by the Fires of Suffering
“I looked around upon the world, and saw that it was shadowed by sorrow and scorched by the fires of suffering. And I looked for the cause. I looked around, but could not find it; I looked in books, but could not find it; I looked within, and found there both the cause and the self-made nature of that cause. I looked again, and deeper, and found the remedy.
I found one Law, the Law of Love; one Life, the Life of adjustment to that Law; one Truth, the Truth of a conquered mind and a quiet and obedient heart. And I dreamed of writing a book which should help men and women, whether rich or poor, learned or unlearned, worldly or unworldly, to find within themselves the source of all success, all happiness, all accomplishment, all truth.
And the dream remained with me, and at last became substantial; and now I send it forth into the world on its mission of healing and blessedness, knowing that it cannot fail to reach the homes and hearts of those who are waiting and ready to receive it.”
Perfection! 10/10, no notes! I’ll have more to say about the other takeaways, of course, but this right here already gives you a solid impression of the positive, uplifting force and power permeating this entire book. It’s just phenomenal, and I can’t wait to explore the rest of it with you.
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Takeaway #2: As Within, So Without
“What you are, so is your world. Everything in the universe is resolved into your own inward experience. It matters little what is without, for it is all a reflection of your own state of consciousness. It matters everything what you are within, for everything without will be mirrored and colored accordingly.”
Before it was a self-help cliche, it was the Ultimate Truth, and it’s exactly the case that we see what we’re focusing on. We find what we’re looking for, sooner or later, and there’s nothing in the external world that doesn’t have a cause, association, or reflection within ourselves.
That being said, I’m not sure I buy the one about “the thing that bothers you about others is something you dislike about yourself” — some people are just jerks, and if you run into them, it doesn’t mean you’re “attracting” jerks into your life because you are a jerk. I don’t think that’s how it works.
The main idea here though is that good, kind, decent, hardworking, and optimistic people attract fortuitous events and wonderful people into their lives for the most part, and as you grow in kindness and strength and power within, you will see it reflected without.
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Takeaway #3: Clothing the Visible World in Thought
“And as we clothe events with the drapery of our own thoughts, so likewise do we clothe the objects of the visible world around us, and where one sees harmony and beauty, another sees revolting ugliness.”
I just read about this experiment today that you can try yourself. Wherever you are right now, take a look around the room and pick out everything that’s right about your life, and existence itself. Things that are going well, things that you like about the room, things about yourself that you like.
Now, that probably made you feel pretty damn good, and it doesn’t take long for that to happen either. But if you were to do the opposite, and look around the room trying to pick out everything that was wrong with the room, your life, and the world, it also wouldn’t take very long to feel bad about yourself!
What this tells you is that, to a great extent, we can control our mood and happiness by choosing what to focus on. We can “clothe the visible world” in the drapery of our thoughts, making it ugly or beautiful, depending on which way we’re looking.
And even if you can’t maintain the positive outlook forever (and who can?), just knowing you can do it will inspire you to do it more often. And the more often you think in that way, the more positive, optimistic, and wonderful your life will become.
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Takeaway #4: Pulsating and Eternal Life
“Where the naturalist, his mind stored with the knowledge of natural facts, saw beauty, harmony, and hidden glory, the mind unenlightened upon those things saw only an offensive mud-puddle. The wildflower which the casual wayfarer thoughtlessly tramples upon is, to the spiritual eye of the poet, an angelic messenger from the invisible.
To the many, the ocean is but a dreary expanse of water on which ships sail and are sometimes wrecked; to the soul of the musician it is a living thing, and he hears, in all its changing moods, divine harmonies.
Where the ordinary mind sees disaster and confusion, the mind of the philosopher sees the most perfect sequence of cause and effect, and where the materialist sees nothing but endless death, the mystic sees pulsating and eternal life.”
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Takeaway #5: What You Give of Yourself You Find
“And as we clothe both events and objects with our own thoughts, so likewise do we clothe the souls of others in the garments of our thoughts.”
I won’t belabor the point here, but there’s something called the expectation effect (sometimes called the Pygmalion effect) that causes other people to respond — mostly unconsciously — to the expectations we have of them.
It’s not “magic” or anything. If we (even unconsciously) expect that a given person will be nice to us, or polite, or friendly, etc., we’ll subtly shift our own behavior, tone of voice, and other mannerisms to reflect the expectations that we have of that other person. And by behaving in this way, we make it more likely that they’ll pick up on these cues and live up to our expectations.
I know you should never trust anyone who says “trust me,” but trust me, I’ve used this exact psychological trigger for more than a decade as a nightclub bouncer, and I am 100% convinced that most of the fights I was able to stop were stopped because of some variation of this effect. Try it!
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Takeaway #6: Find, Acknowledge, and Possess
“If you are one of those who are praying for, and looking forward to, a happier world beyond the grave, here is a message of gladness for you: you may enter into and realize that happy world now; it fills the whole universe, and it is within you, waiting for you to find, acknowledge, and possess.”
Naval Ravikant once asked, What if this were the paradise that we were promised, and we’re just squandering it?
This earthly paradise is absolutely marvelous in sooo many ways! And yet how many of us regularly stop to appreciate it?! To love it?! Too few, I say!! Too few!!
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Takeaway #7: Do Good NOW
“If your real desire is to do good, there is no need to wait for money before you do it; you can do it now, this very moment, and just where you are. If you are really so unselfish as you believe yourself to be, you will show it by sacrificing yourself for others now.”
There’s a saying that goes something like: If you’re not generous with $10, you won’t be generous with $10,000,000, and I believe that’s completely true. You don’t need to be rich to help somebody, and those impulses also don’t just disappear once you get rich. If you did give away $1 back when you only had $10, you’re most definitely still the kind of person who’s ready to give away $1,000,000. And you don’t have to wait.
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Takeaway #8: Master the Soul
“All the forces of the universe aid and protect his footsteps who is master of his own soul.”
I’m not a huge fan of books like The Secret and similar books because I feel as though they try to peddle too many easy answers. There’s something…I don’t know, there’s just something about the instant gratification, lightning-fast “manifestation” tone of those books that puts me off. And yet…
And YET…there does seem to be a (oh god, I’m going to use the term cosmic power, aren’t I?)…there does seem to be a strange cosmic power that comes to our aid once we’ve proven to the universe that we’re willing to take massive action — in complete faith — toward what we’ve decided we want out of life.
When we know exactly where we’re headed, the universe seems to step out of our way and help us out, and that’s what James Allen is driving at here.
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Takeaway #9: Lose Yourself in the Service of Others
“So long as you persist in selfishly seeking for your own personal happiness, so long will happiness elude you, and you will be sowing the seeds of wretchedness. In so far as you succeed in losing yourself in the service of others, in that measure will happiness come to you, and you will reap a harvest of bliss.”
In another of my favorite stories, this young cat was chasing his tail around and around, when an older cat came up to him and asked him what he was doing. The younger cat replied that he had learned that happiness was located in his tail, and so he was trying to catch it.
The older cat then said to the younger one: “Yes, I’ve heard that too. But what I’ve found is that when I’m marching straight ahead with confidence, optimism, and hope, and I’m dedicating myself to the service and happiness of others in the process, happiness follows me wherever I go.”
I’m more of a dog person, but that cat seems pretty wise to me.
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Takeaway #10: Give All, Lose Nothing
“He is poor who is dissatisfied; he is rich who is contented with what he has, and he is richer who is generous with what he has.
When we contemplate the fact that the universe is abounding in all good things, material as well as spiritual, and compare it with man’s blind eagerness to secure a few gold coins, or a few acres of dirt, it is then that we realize how dark and ignorant selfishness is; it is then that we know that self-seeking is self-destruction.
Nature gives all, without reservation, and loses nothing; man, grasping all, loses everything.”
Oh man, this is probably one of my favorite passages in the entire book!
It reminds me of Colin Wilson and his absolutely incredible book, The Outsider, where he says that when we’re asking life for what we want, it’s almost as though we’re some fabulously rich person, our bank vaults overflowing with priceless paintings and gold coins, standing in front of the bank clerk asking if we have enough to purchase a new tie or a shirt or something like that.
The universe is fabulously rich! And so are we! Trillionaires, all of us!
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Takeaway #11: Pass Through the Darkness
“Evil has always been symbolized by darkness, and Good by light, and hidden within the symbol is contained the perfect interpretation, the reality; for, just as light always floods the universe, and darkness is only a mere speck or shadow cast by a small body intercepting a few rays of the illimitable light, so the Light of the Supreme Good is the positive and life-giving power which floods the universe, and evil the insignificant shadow cast by the self that intercepts and shuts off the illuminating rays which strive for entrance.
When night folds the world in its black impenetrable mantle, no matter how dense the darkness, it covers but the small space of half our little planet, while the whole universe is ablaze with living light, and every soul knows that it will awake in the light in the morning.
Know, then, that when the dark night of sorrow, pain, or misfortune settles down upon your soul, and you stumble along with weary and uncertain steps, that you are merely intercepting your own personal desires between yourself and the boundless light of joy and bliss, and the dark shadow that covers you is cast by none and nothing but yourself.
And just as the darkness without is but a negative shadow, an unreality which comes from nowhere, goes to nowhere, and has no abiding dwelling place, so the darkness within is equally a negative shadow passing over the evolving and Light-born soul.
‘But,’ I fancy I hear someone say, ‘why pass through the darkness of evil at all?’ Because, by ignorance, you have chosen to do so, and because, by doing so, you may understand both good and evil, and may the more appreciate the light by having passed through the darkness.”
Complete Notes from “The Path to Prosperity” (Free)
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“To possess those inward qualities which constitute goodness is to be armored against all the powers of evil, and to be doubly protected in every time of trial; and to build oneself up in those qualities is to build up a success which cannot be shaken, and to enter into a prosperity which will endure forever.”
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“You believe (and upon this little word belief hang all our sorrows and joys) that outward things have the power to make or mar your life; by doing so you submit to those outward things, confess that you are their slave, and they your unconditional master; by so doing, you invest them with a power which they do not, of themselves, possess, and you succumb, in reality, not to the mere circumstances, but to the gloom or gladness, the fear or hope, the strength or weakness, which your thought-sphere has thrown around them.”
“If circumstances had the power to bless or harm, they would bless or harm all men alike, but the fact that the same circumstances will be alike good and bad to different souls proves that the good or bad is not in the circumstance, but only in the mind of him that encounters it.
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When you begin to realize this, you will begin to control your thoughts, to regulate and discipline your mind, and to rebuild the inward temple of your soul, eliminating all useless and superfluous material, and incorporating into your being thoughts alone of joy and serenity, of strength and life, of compassion and love, of beauty and immortality; and as you do this you will become joyful and serene, strong and healthy, compassionate and loving, and beautiful with the beauty of immortality.”
“And though he become rich many times, yet as many times must he be thrown back into poverty, until, by long experience and suffering he conquers the poverty within. But the man who is outwardly poor, yet rich in virtue, is truly rich, and, in the midst of all his poverty he is surely traveling towards prosperity; and abounding joy and bliss await his coming.”
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“If you are not doing good with what little you have, depend upon it the more money you got the more selfish you would become, and all the good you appeared to do with your money, if you attempted to do any, would be so much insinuating self-laudation.”
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“Rectify your heart and you will rectify your life.”
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“Before the divine radiance of a pure heart all darkness vanishes and all clouds melt away, and he who has conquered self has conquered the universe. Come, then, out of your poverty; come out of your pain; come out of your troubles, and sighings, and complainings, and heartaches, and loneliness by coming out of yourself. Let the old tattered garment of your petty selfishness fall from you, and put on the new garment of universal Love. You will then realize the inward heaven, and it will be reflected in all your outward life.”
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“Defeats are steps by which we climb with purer aim to nobler ends.”
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“By the power of such a faith the dark waters of uncertainty are divided, every mountain of difficulty crumbles away, and the believing soul passes on unharmed. Strive, O reader! to acquire, above everything, the priceless possession of this dauntless faith, for it is the talisman of happiness, of success, of peace, of power, of all that makes life great and superior to suffering.
Build upon such a faith, and you build upon the Rock of the Eternal, and the structure that you erect will never be dissolved, for it will transcend all the accumulations of material luxuries and riches, the end of which is dust.
Whether you are hurled into the depths of sorrow or lifted upon the heights of joy, ever retain your hold upon this faith, ever return to it as your rock of refuge, and keep your feet firmly planted upon its immortal and immovable base.
Centered in such a faith, you will become possessed of such a spiritual strength as will shatter, like so many toys of glass, all the forces of evil that are hurled against you, and you will achieve a success such as the mere striver after worldly gain can never know or even dream of.”
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“Men and women are rushing hither and thither in the blind search for happiness, and cannot find it; nor ever will until they recognize that happiness is already within them and round about them, filling the universe, and that they, in their selfish searching, are shutting themselves out from it.”
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“I followed Happiness to make her mine, past towering oak and swinging ivy vine. She fled, I chased, o’er slanting hill and dale, o’er fields and meadows, in the purpling vale; pursuing rapidly o’er dashing stream. I scaled the dizzy cliffs where eagles scream; I traversed swiftly every land and sea, but always happiness eluded me.
Exhausted, fainting, I pursued no more, but sank to rest upon a barren shore. One came and asked for food, and one for alms — I placed the bread and gold in bony palms. One came for sympathy, and one for rest; I shared with every needy one my best; When, lo! sweet Happiness, with form divine, stood by me, whispering softly, ‘I am thine.’”
-John Burleigh
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“Taking the first step with a good thought, the second with a good word, and the third with a good deed, I entered Paradise.”
-John Burleigh
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“If thou wouldst right the world, and banish all its evils and its woes, make its wild places bloom, and its drear deserts blossom as the rose — then right thyself.
If thou wouldst turn the world from its long, lone captivity in sin, restore all broken hearts, slay grief, and let sweet consolation in — turn thou thyself.
If thou wouldst cure the world of its long sickness, end its grief and pain, bring in all-healing joy, and give to the afflicted rest again — then cure thyself.
If thou wouldst wake the world out of its dream of death and dark’ning strife, bring it to Love and Peace, and Light and brightness of immortal Life — Wake thou thyself.”
Complete Notes from “The Path to Prosperity” (Free)
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The Path to Prosperity is a wonderful book and I absolutely recommend reading it for yourself. These takeaways give you a very good idea of what’s waiting for you there, but if these interested you, definitely read the whole book.
And of course, if you want more book recommendations from me (selected from the 1,300+ books I’ve read at the time of writing), subscribe to my free newsletter, The Reading Life, which is enjoyed by 5,400+ people each week.
There’s also my YouTube channel, where I post in-depth book reviews, podcast interviews with famous authors, and tactical videos that will help you earn more money in your business.
With that said, I hope you enjoyed (and profited from) these takeaways, and I’ll be back soon with more great books!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
P.S. These 100 Books Will RADICALLY Improve Your Life👇
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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