「 As a Man Thinketh 」を現代の米国英語で、中学3年生レベルの語彙と文法をコンセプトに英訳を作成しています。
第二章「EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON CIRCUMSTANCES-2」です。原文と日本語解説もつけています。
Effect of Thought on Circumstances-2 (Modernized Version)
① Every thought we allow into our minds grows and shapes our actions. Over time, good thoughts lead to good results, and bad thoughts lead to bad results.
② The outside world reflects our thoughts. Both good and bad situations help us grow. Like a farmer harvesting crops, we learn from both happiness and hardship.
③ A person follows their deepest desires and thoughts, whether they chase false dreams or stay focused on strong goals. In the end, their life reflects these choices. Growth and change always follow certain rules.
④ A person does not end up poor or in jail because of bad luck, but because of negative thoughts and bad choices. A good person does not suddenly commit a crime—bad thoughts have been growing inside them for a long time. Life does not control us; it shows us who we really are. People create their own future by the way they think and act.
⑤ People do not get what they want, but what they truly are. Their dreams and goals often fail, but their deepest thoughts and desires always grow, whether good or bad. The power that shapes our lives comes from within us. We create our own limits with negative thoughts, but we also create our own freedom with positive ones. A person does not get what they simply wish for, but what they truly work for. Their wishes only come true when they match their thoughts and actions.
⑥ When we fight against our problems, we are really fighting against their effects while still keeping their causes inside us. These causes may be bad habits we know about or weaknesses we don’t notice, but either way, they slow us down and hold us back. To move forward, we must recognize and fix them.
Effect of Thought on Circumstances-2
(Original text)
(Based on As a Man Thinketh by James Allen)
①Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit.
swon→sow（種をまく） blossoming（開花すること） fruitage（結果、成果）bear（生む、生じる）
②The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner world of thought, and both pleasant and unpleasant external conditions are factors, which make for the ultimate good of the individual. As the reaper of his own harvest, man learns both by suffering and bliss.
ultimate（最終的な） individual（個人の、個々の）reaper（刈り取る人、収穫者） bliss（至福、幸福）
③Following the inmost desires, aspirations, thoughts, by which he allows himself to be dominated, (pursuing the will-o’-the-wisps of impure imaginings or steadfastly walking the highway of strong and high endeavour), a man at last arrives at their fruition and fulfilment in the outer conditions of his life. The laws of growth and adjustment everywhere obtains.
inmost（最も奥深い）aspirations（志、願望） dominated（支配された） pursuing（追求する） will-o’-the-wisps（実現不可能な幻想、はかない希望） steadfastly（確固として、しっかりと） endeavour＝endeavor（努力、試み）fruition（実現、成就） fulfilment=fulfillment（達成、成就、充足）
④A man does not come to the almshouse or the jail by the tyranny of fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of grovelling thoughts and base desires. Nor does a pure-minded man fall suddenly into crime by stress of any mere external force; the criminal thought had long been secretly fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its gathered power. Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself. No such conditions can exist as descending into vice and its attendant sufferings apart from vicious inclinations, or ascending into virtue and its pure happiness without the continued cultivation of virtuous aspirations; and man, therefore, as the lord and master of thought, is the maker of himself the shaper and author of environment. Even at birth the soul comes to its own and through every step of its earthly pilgrimage it attracts those combinations of conditions which reveal itself, which are the reflections of its own purity and, impurity, its strength and weakness.
almshouse（救貧院、貧民救済施設） tyranny（圧政、暴虐） grovelling（卑屈な、へつらう） base（下劣な、卑しい） fostered（育てられた、助長された） reveal（明らかにする、示す）vice（悪徳、悪習） vicious（悪意のある、邪悪な、凶暴な）inclinations（傾向、好み） virtuous（徳の高い） aspirations（大望、向上心） earthly（この世の、現世の）pilgrimage（巡礼、旅）
⑤Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are. Their whims, fancies, and ambitions are thwarted at every step, but their inmost thoughts and desires are fed with their own food, be it foul or clean. The “divinity that shapes our ends” is in ourselves; it is our very self. Only himself manacles man: thought and action are the gaolers of Fate—they imprison, being base; they are also the angels of Freedom—they liberate, being noble. Not what he wishes and prays for does a man get, but what he justly earns. His wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with his thoughts and actions.
whims（気まぐれ） fancies（空想、気まぐれ） thwarted（挫折させられた、阻止された）foul（不潔な、汚れた、不正な）divinity（神性、神格、神）manacles（手錠、束縛） gaolers（看守、監視人） gratified（満足させる、喜ばせる）
⑥In the light of this truth, what, then, is the meaning of “fighting against circumstances?” It means that a man is continually revolting against an effect without, while all the time he is nourishing and preserving its cause in his heart. That cause may take the form of a conscious vice or an unconscious weakness; but whatever it is, it stubbornly retards the efforts of its possessor, and thus calls aloud for remedy.
revolting against（反抗する）nourishing（栄養を与える、育む） stubbornly（頑固に、執拗に） retards（遅らせる、妨げる） remedy（改善策、治療法）
和訳の要約
現代英語版は、中学レベルの英語ですが、分かりにくい部分があるかもしれません。
ここでアウトラインを掴んでおくとスッと頭に入るはずです！
これは名言と思える箇所は太字にしておきます。
思いの種と人生の実り
人の思いは、心に蒔かれる種のようなものです。
その種は時とともに芽を出し、行いとなり、人生の実を結びます。
善い思いは善い実を生み、悪い思いは悪い実を生むのです。
外の世界は内なる思いによって形づくられ、喜びも苦しみも、すべてが魂の成長の糧となります。
心が定める人生の歩み
人は心に抱く願いや思いに従って歩み、その歩みは必ず結果へとつながります。
運命や環境に左右されるのではなく、人は自らの思いによって人生を築くのです。
清らかな心は善い道を生み、邪な思いは時とともに表れます。
思いこそが運命の主
人は望むものを得るのではなく、自らの心にふさわしいものを引き寄せます。
悪い思いは人を縛り、正しい思いは自由へと導きます。
人生は思いの鏡であり、願うだけではなく、正しい行いとともに歩むとき、人は真に報われるのです。
まとめ
本ブログのポイントは、原文を読みやすい現代英語でリライトした英訳版です。
現代英語版は英語勉強に最適です。覚えるぐらい繰り返し読んで欲しいです。
これをしっかり読み込めば自己啓発の根本である「思考は現実化する」「人は考えた通りの人になる」が理解できるようになります。
2-3に続きます。
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