Travel to the fields and country lanes in the springtime and you will see farmers and gardeners busy sowing seeds in the newly prepared soil. If you stopped and asked any of them what kind of produce they expected to grow from the seeds they were sowing, they’d look at you funny and tell you they weren’t “expecting” at all.

They’d tell you that it’s common sense that their produce will be what they’re sowing — wheat or barley or turnips, as the case may be — and that they sow their crops for the very purpose of reproducing that particular one.

Every fact and process in nature contains a moral lesson for those who would see it, for there is no law in the physical world that doesn’t operate with the same certainty in our minds and lives. Across the spiritual traditions, many parables illustrate this truth, being drawn from the simple facts of nature.

What Thoughts, Words, and Acts Are You Sowing?

Thoughts, words, and acts are seeds sown, and by the inviolable law of things, they produce the kind of life they promise. Those thinking hostile thoughts bring hatred upon themselves, while those thinking loving thoughts are loved. The person whose thoughts, words, and actions are sincere is surrounded by sincere friends, while the one who is insincere is surrounded by insincere people.

Those who sow wrong thoughts and deeds and then pray that God will bless them are in the position of a farmer who, having sown weed seeds, asks God to bring forth a harvest of wheat.

That which ye sow, ye reap. See yonder fields!
The sesame was sesame, The corn was corn.
The silence and the darkness knew!
So is a man’s fate born.
We become reapers of the things we sow.

Those who would be blessed, let them scatter blessings. Those who would be happy, let them help cultivate the happiness of others.

Scattering Gratitude and Blessings

Then there’s another side to this seed sowing. Farmers must scatter most of their seeds upon the land and leave them to the elements in order to eventually harvest this crop. Were they to hoard their seeds, they would not grow their produce and their seeds would lose vitality, dry up, and die. The seed dies when the farmer sows it, most certainly, but in the right place, it brings forth a great abundance. So in life, we get by giving; we grow rich by scattering gratitude and blessings. Those who say they have knowledge they can’t share because the world is incapable of receiving it either don’t really have it or, if they do possess it, they’ll soon be deprived of it. To hoard is to lose; to keep exclusively is to be dispossessed.

Even those who want to increase their material wealth must be willing to part with and invest what capital they have first. So as long as they hold on to their precious money, they will not only remain poor but grow poorer every day. They will, after all, lose the thing they love, and will lose it without increase. But if they wisely let it go — if they scatter their seeds of gold like the farmers sow their seeds — then they can faithfully wait for, and reasonably expect, the increase.

Sowing the Seeds of Strife Will Not Lead to Peace and Harmony

Some ask God to give them peace and purity, righteousness and blessedness, but they never get them. Why not? Because they’re not practicing them, not sowing them. I once heard a preacher pray very earnestly for forgiveness, and shortly afterwards, in the course of his sermon, he called upon his congregation to “show no mercy to the enemies of the church.” Such self-delusion is pitiful, but some have yet to learn that the way to obtain peace and blessedness is to scatter peaceful and blessed thoughts, words, and deeds.

Some believe that they can sow the seeds of strife, lack of clarity, and faithlessness and then gather in a rich harvest of peace, clarity, and harmony by merely asking for it. What more pathetic sight than to see an irritable and argumentative person praying for peace. We reap what we sow, and we can reap all blessedness now and at once if we just put aside selfishness and sow the seeds of kindness, gentleness, and love.

If you’re feeling troubled, perplexed, sorrowful, or unhappy, ask yourself:

• “What mental seeds have I been sowing?”

• “Are they seeds of trouble and sorrow or gratitude and love?”

• “What is my attitude toward others?”

• “What have I done for my friends and family?”

• “Am I reaping joyous fruits from my beliefs, thoughts, and actions toward others or bitter weeds?”

Seek within and you shall find — and, having found, abandon all the seeds of the small self and sow only the seeds of Truth from this moment forward. Just look to the farmers and gardeners to see the simple truth of this wisdom.

Essential Points

• Those who sow wrong thoughts and deeds and pray that God will bless them are in the position of a farmer who, having sown weed seeds, asks God to bring forth a harvest of wheat.

• We get by giving; we grow rich by scattering gratitude and blessings. Those who would be blessed, let them scatter blessings. Those who would be happy, let them help cultivate the happiness of others.

© 2012 by Ruth L. Miller. Reprinted with permission
from Atria Books/Beyond Words Publishing.
All Rights Reserved. www.beyondword.com

Article Source

As We Think, So We Are: James Allen's Guide to Transforming Our Lives
by James Allen (edited by Ruth L Miller)

Click here for more info and/or to order this book on Amazon.

About the Author

James Allen was a British philosophical writer known for his inspirational books and poetry and as a pioneer of the self-help movement. His best known work, As a Man Thinketh, has been mass produced since its publication in 1902.

About the Editor

Ruth L. Miller, Ph.D. has interpreted the works of some of the greatest thinkers of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century, from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Charles F. Haanel. She expertly integrates scientific, spiritual, and cultural understanding to clarify metaphysical principles for a modern audience. An ordained New Thought minister, Ruth serves in Unity, Science of Mind, and Unitarian churches of the Pacific Northwest and is director of the Portal Center for Studies of Spirit in Oregon. Visit her website at www.rlmillerphd.com