From Passion to Peace
Описание книги
James Allen, author of «As a Man Thinketh» and other classics of inspiration, returns with From Passion to Peace, his thoughts on personal fulfillment. This edition adds a new introduction and a selected bibliography. The first three parts of this book, Passion, Aspiration, and Temptation, represent the common human life, with its passion, pathos, and tragedy. The last three parts, Transcendence, Beatitude, and Peace, represents the Divine Life—calm, wise and beautiful—of the sage and Savior. The middle part, Transmutation, is the transitional stage between the two; it is the alchemic process linking the divine with the human life. Discipline, denial, and renunciation do not constitute the Divine State; they are only the means by which it is attained. The Divine Life is established in that Perfect Knowledge which bestows Perfect Peace.
Отрывок из книги
James Allen (1864-1912) was a British philosophical writer known for his inspirational books and poetry and as a pioneer of self-help movement. His best known work, As a Man Thinketh, has been mass produced since its publication in 1903. It has been a source of inspiration to motivational and self-help authors.
Allen was born in Leicester, England, into a working class family. He was the eldest of two brothers. His mother could neither read nor write while his father, William, was a factory knitter. In 1879, following a downturn in the textile trade of central England, Allen’s father traveled alone to America to find work and establish a new home for the family. Within two days of arriving, his father was pronounced dead at New York City Hospital, believed to be a case of robbery and murder. At age fifteen, with the family now facing economic disaster, Allen was forced to leave school and find work.
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If one would find peace, he must come out of passion. The wise man subdues his passions, the foolish man is subdued by them. The seeker for wisdom begins by turning his back on folly. The lover of peace enters the way which leads thereto, and with every step he takes he leaves further below and behind him the dark dwellingplace of passion and despair.
The first step towards the heights of wisdom and peace is to understand the darkness and misery of selfishness, and when that is understood, the overcoming of it—the coming out of it—will follow.
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