The Lexicon
How mind makes reality
Thought
Thought is the primal cause, the formative power from which character, body, and circumstance alike are woven. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he; the conditions of a life are always found in harmony with the inner thinking that built them. The traditions hold thought to be a real force, a vibration that goes out and returns clothed in its own kind. We become what we think about, and the dominant thought of a mind becomes the dominant fact of a life.
Carried by 50 teachers · across 9 traditions · 30 quotes
Because thought creates, the discipline of the seeker is to govern the thought-life: to tend the mind as a garden, weeding the destructive and cultivating the constructive, holding the optimistic and refusing the gloomy. This is not denial of reality but recognition that thought is where reality is first decided. Watch the thoughts, for they become words, deeds, and destiny. The one who learns to think what they want to think has taken the inner throne.
In their words
The one and only formative power given to man is thought. By his thinking, he not only makes character, but body and affairs, for "as he thinketh within himself, so is he."Charles Fillmore
Every man is where he is by the law of his being; the thoughts which he has built into his character have brought him there.James Allen
All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.Gautama Buddha (Dhammapada)
What we do, what we are, what we have, all depend upon what we think. We can never express anything that we do not first have in mind.Robert Collier
You are what you are and where you are because of what has gone into your mind. You can change what you are and where you are by changing what goes into your mind.Zig Ziglar