the absolute ruler of his own kingdom, that the Sermon on the Mount considers you; for this, after all, is the most complete of all the similes. When you know the Truth of Being, you are, as a literal fact and not merely in a rhetorical sense, the absolute monarch of your own life. You make your own conditions, and you can unmake them. You make and unmake your own health. You attract to yourself certain kinds of people and certain conditions - and others you repel. You attract to yourself riches or poverty, and peace of mind or fear - entirely in accordance with the way in which you govern your kingdom. Of course, the world does not know this. It supposes that the conditions of one's life are largely made for him by outer circumstances, and by other people. It believes that one is at all times liable to unforeseen and unexpected accidents of one sort or another, any one of which may seriously inconvenience or even completely ruin his scheme of life. But the Truth of Being is just the contrary of all this...
Now we come to consider this kingdom a little more in detail, and we find that the King's Palace, the office of government, so to say, is nothing less than your own consciousness - your own mentality. This is your very own private cabinet, and the business transacted there is the swirl of thoughts that continually pass across your mind. The "Secret Place of the Most High," the Psalmist calls it, and it is secret because no one but yourself knows what goes on therein. There is privacy, and there is dominion. You have the power to think what thoughts you like. You can choose which thoughts you will accept and which you will reject. You are master there.
- Emmet Fox
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