A few years ago, I was asked to answer this question on a radio program: "What is the biggest lesson you have ever learned?"
That was easy: the biggest thing I have ever learned is the importance of what we think. Tell me what you think, and I will know what you are. Our thoughts make us what we are. How can we be anything else?
I am sure that the biggest lesson you and I have to learn - in fact, almost the only lesson we have to learn - is choosing the right thoughts. If we can do that, we will be on the highway to solving a11 our worries. One of the greatest thinkers, Marcus Aurelius, said it in eight words - eight words that can decide your life: "Our life is what we think of it."
Yes, if we think happy thoughts, we will be happy. If we think sad thoughts, we will be sad. If we think right thoughts, we will not be wrong. If we think unhealthy thoughts, we will be ill.
As I grow older, I know well how great the power of thought is. As a result of thirty-five years spent in teaching, I know men and women can send away worry, fear, and various kinds of illnesses, and change their lives by changing thoughts.
For example, one of these unbelievable changes which showed the power of thought happened to one of my students. He had a heavy illness. This student told me, "I worried about everything: I worried because I was too short; because I thought I was losing my hair; because I feared I was losing the gir1 I wanted to marry; because I felt I was not living a good life. I could no longer work; I gave up my job. The pressure got so strong that something had to happen - and it did.
"My illness was so bad that I couldn't talk even to my own family. I had no control over my thoughts. I was filled with emptiness. Every day was one of sadness. I wanted to jump into the river and end it all.
"But I decided to take a trip to Florida. I hoped that a change of air would help me. When I got on the train, my father handed me a letter and told me not to open it until I reached Florida. I arrived in Florida during the summer season. Because I couldn't get in a hotel, I rented a sleeping room in a garage. I tried to get a job, but couldn't. I spent my time near the sea. I was more unhappy in Florida than at home; so I opened the letter from Dad. His note said, 'Son, you are 1,500 miles from home, and you don't feel any different, do you? I knew you wouldn't, because you took with you the one thing that makes you unhappy; that is, yourself. There is nothing wrong with either your body or your mind. It is not the things that you have met but what you think of these things. "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." When you understand that, son, come home. Then you will be fine.'
"Dad's letter made me angry. I was looking for some kind words, not teaching. I was very angry, so I thought then and there that I would never go home. That night when I was walking down one of the side streets of Miami, I came to a church in which services were going on. As I had no place to go, I went in and listened to a sermon on the text:‘He who controls his mind is stronger than he who takes a city.' I sat in the house of God and heard the same thoughts from Dad's 1etter - and then all my worries left me. I was able to think clearly for the first time in my life. I said to myself,‘What a fool I have been!' I was surprised to see myself in my true light: here I wanted to change the whole world and everyone in it - what the only thing that needed changing was the direction of the lens of the camera which was my mind."