Fears
and doubts repel prosperity. Abundance cannot get to a person
who holds such a mental attitude. Things that are unlike
in the mental realm repel one another. Trying to become
prosperous while always talking poverty, thinking poverty,
dreading it, predicting that you will always be poor, is
like trying to cure disease by always thinking about it,
picturing it, visualizing it, believing that you are always
going to be sick, that you never can be cured.
Nothing
can attract prosperity but that which has an affinity for
it, the prosperous thought, the prosperous conviction, the
prosperity faith, the prosperity ambition.
Opulence
follows a law as strict as that of mathematics. If we obey
the law we get the opulent flow. If we disobey the law,
we cut off the flow. Most of us tap the great life supply
by inserting a half-inch pipe, and then pinch even this
with our doubts, fears and uncertainties. There is no lack
in Him in whom all fullness lies. The pinching, the limitation
is in ourselves, for He satisfieth the longing soul
and filleth the hungry soul with good things.
We
must conquer inward poverty before we can conquer outward
poverty. True prosperity is the inward consciousness of
spiritual opulence, wholeness, completeness; we cannot feel
poor when we are conscious of being enveloped in the all-supply,
that God is our partner, our Shepherd, and that we cannot
want.
A
poor woman who had all her life previously lived in the
back country, moved to a progressive little village where,
to her great surprise, she found that her new home was lighted
by electricity. She knew nothing about electricity, had
never even seen an electric light before, and the little
eight candle power electric bulbs with which the house was
fitted seemed very marvelous to her.
Later,
a man came along, one day, selling a new kind of electric
bulb, and asked the woman to allow him to replace one of
her small bulbs with one of his new style sixty candle power
bulbs just to show her what it would do. She consented,
and when the electricity was turned on she stood transfixed.
It seemed to her nothing short of magic that such a little
bulb could give so wonderful a light, almost like that of
sunlight. She never dreamed that the source of the new flood
of illumination had been there all the time, that the enormously
increased light came from the same current which had been
feeding her little eight candle bulb.
We
smile at the ignorance of this poor woman, but the majority
of us are far more ignorant of our own power than she was
of the power of the electric current. We go through life
using a little eight candle power bulb, believing we are
getting all the power that can come to us, all that we can
express or that destiny will give us, believing that we
are limited to eight candle power bulbs.
We
never dream that an infinite current, a current in which
we are perpetually bathed would flood our lives with light,
with a light inconceivably brilliant and beautiful, if we
would only put on a larger bulb, make a larger connection
with the infinite supply current. The supply wire we are
using is so tiny that only a little of the great current
can flow through, only a few candle power, when there are
millions flowing past our very door. An unlimited supply
of this infinite current is ours for the taking, ours for
the expressing.
Multitudes
of human beings go through life just as ignorant as was
the poor country woman of the fact that there is unlimited
light and unlimited power flowing right past their doors
ready for their use, and that they may use all of it they
can express. They are getting no more from the vast resources
at their command than this woman was getting from the electric
current. They seem to think that if they are expressing
four candles, or eight candles power, that it is all the
infinite supply can give them, or all that they were intended
to have. It never occurs to them that the trouble is not
in the current itself, but in the small bulbs they are using.
Millions
have died in mental and physical penury, died weaklings,
when they had within their own natures vast possibilities
of wealth and power which were never utilized, because they
did not connect with the source which would have enabled
them to express wealth and power.
Most
of us strangle our supply by our pinching thoughts, our
stingy, poverty thought, our doubt and fear thoughts. We
pinch or entirely cut off the inflow of prosperity by our
poverty-stricken mental attitude.
The
stream of plenty flows toward the open mind, the expectant
mind. It flows toward faith and confidence and away from
doubt. It will not flow toward a stingy, pessimistic unbelieving
mind, a fearing, worrying, anxious mind. We must keep the
current open or the supply will be cut off. We cannot get
a sixty or a hundred candle power supply through a four
or eight candle power bulb.
The
stream of plenty, of unlimited opulence, is flowing right
past your door, carrying an infinite, never-ending supply
of all the good things that heart could wish for. If you
have the faith that creates, the faith that believes the
best is coming to you, you can reach out mentally into this
great stream of plentythe universal supplyand
get material aid to build what you will. The supply is there.
It rests with you to make the connection that will draw
it to you.
If
all of the poverty-stricken people in the world today would
quit thinking of poverty, quit dwelling on it, worrying
about it and fearing it; if they would wipe the poverty
thought out of their minds, if they would cut off mentally
all relations with poverty and substitute the opulent thought,
the prosperity thought, the mental attitude that faces toward
prosperity, they would soon begin to change conditions.
It is the dwelling on the thing, fearing it, the worrying
about it, the anxiety about it, and the terror of it that
attracts us to it and attracts it to us. We cut off our
supply current and establish relations with want, with poverty-stricken
conditions.
Many
people who have become interested in the new philosophy
are greatly disappointed that they are not making any appreciable
demonstration over poverty, that they are not advancing
their position in life, not improving their conditions as
they had expected they would.
Now,
my friend, the law of abundance, of opulence, is as definite
as the law of gravitation, and works just as unerringly.
If you are not demonstrating as you expected to, you are
probably still held under the bond of mental limitation,
for there is no lack in Him in whom all fullness lies.
There is no limitation in the all-supply. The trouble is
you try to tap it with a miserable little half or quarter
inch pipe instead of a great big one, and the supply cannot
flow through and flood your life with abundance.
If
you pinch your supply pipe with your doubts and fears, your
anxiety, the terror of coming to want, if you do not believe
you can demonstrate abundance, you will get but a meager,
limited supply instead of the inexhaustible flow you might
have. In other words, the supply pipe is pinched only by
your own mental limitations. By your doubts and fears and
worries and unbelief, you can cut off all the supply and
starve or, by a great magnetizing faith, a superb confidence
in the all-supply, you can flood your life with all good
things.
The
law of supply is scientific. It will not act unless all
the necessary conditions are fulfilled. Simply believing
in the new philosophy and still keeping your old life doubts
and fear habits, living in your old thought habits of lack
and poverty, inefficiency, will not bring success. If you
dont believe you will prosper and you dont practice
what you believe, you will get no results. If you would
reap its fruits you must obey the law of supply, the law
of abundance, the law of prosperity.
Prosperity
never comes by merely wishing or longing for it. Keeping
your mind fixed on it, simply thinking of prosperity will
never bring it to you. This is only the first step. You
must cling to your prosperity thought, your prosperity ideal,
but you must also back it up with scientific methods, the
practical common-sense methods which all successful men
employ in their work. You might dream of abundance and prosperity
all your life-time and die in the poorhouse, if you did
not back up your dream with businesslike efficiency methods.
That is, you must be methodical, orderly, systematic, accurate,
thorough, and industrious. You must do everything to a finish.
You must fling your energy, your heart into your business,
your profession, your work, whatever it is.
One
of the worst things about poverty is that it induces the
habit of expecting poverty and failure, the habit of being
half reconciled to its necessity.
No
matter how poor you may be, if you have the right mental
attitude you will not long remain poor. If you are determined
to turn your back upon poverty and face toward prosperity,
however your actual conditions may contradict this; if you
really believe that you are a child of the Creator and Possessor
of all things, that you were not intended for poverty, but
that on the contrary the good things, the beautiful things
of life are for you, the life glorious and not the pauper
or the drudge life, you at once open your mind to the inflow
of the prosperity current.
Have
you, who are beating against the iron bars of poverty, ever
stopped to think what marvelous things the Creator has everywhere
provided for us His children? Just imagine the entire universe,
the great cosmic ocean of creative intelligence, packed
with all the riches, all the glorious things, the magnificent
possibilities the human mind can conceive, and then try
to picture what it would mean to you and to all who are
complaining of lack and want if by some magic they could
call out of this universal supply of creative intelligence
anything which would match their desires, their heart longings.
Imagine this vast universe, this ocean of creative energy,
packed with possibilities from which human beings could
draw everything which the wildest imagination could conceive,
everything they desire in life, everything they need for
comfort and convenience, even luxuries,also cities,
railroads, telegraphs and all sorts of wonderful inventions
and discoveries. You will say, doubtless, that such a thing
is too silly to contemplate for a moment. Yet, havent
human beings been doing this very thing since the dawn of
civilization, all up through the ages?
Every
discovery, every invention, every improvement, every facility,
every home, every building, every city, every railroad,
every ship, everything that man has created for our use
and benefit he has fashioned out of this vast invisible
cosmic ocean of intelligence by thought force. Everything
we use, everything we have, every achievement of man is
preceded by a mental vision, a plan. Everything man has
accomplished on this earth is a result of a desire, has
been preceded by a mental picture of it. Everything he has
produced on this plane of existence has been drawn out of
this invisible ocean of divine intelligence by his thought
force. His imagination first pictured the thing he wanted
to do; he kept visualizing this mental conception, never
stopped thinking, creating, until his efforts to match his
visions with their realities drew to him the thing he had
concentrated on.
We
all imagine that we actually, of ourselves, create these
things. We do not. We simply work in unison with the Creator,
and draw them out of the vast invisible cosmic ocean of
supply. But we must do our part or there will be no realization
for us. Just as the first step in an architects building
is his plan, so must we first make a plan or picture of
the thing we desire. The architect first sees in all its
details in his minds eye the building to be erected
even before he draws his plan on paper. He mentally sees
the real building long before there are any materials on
the spot for its construction. His plan has come out of
the invisible, out of the fathomless ocean of possibilities
which surrounds us. All of our wants and desires can find
their fulfillment in this unlimited supply.
This
is a marvelous revelation to man, the significance of which
most of us have not grasped. Only here and there is there
one who utilizes it in his daily living. But science is
recognizing it. Edison says all scientists feel that about
and through everything there is the play of an Eternal Mind.
They are recognizing that this is the first great Cause.
It
is difficult to realize that every instant, under the impulse
of Eternal Mind, miracles are leaping out from the cosmic
ocean of energy into objectivity to meet our wants, to supply
all our needs. Most of us are not able to grasp the idea
that there is wealth and beauty and unthinkable luxuries
waiting here for Gods children. And because of this
we do not materialize the things we desire.
It
is one of the most marvelous things, in this wonderful plan
of creation, that we actually live, move and have our being
in this invisible ocean of limitless creative material,
and that all we have to do to attract what we want is to
hold the right mental attitude toward it and do our best
on the physical plane to match it with its reality. Noah
might have lighted the Ark had he known enough. The force
was there just as today. When we once get it firmly fixed
in our minds that in this invisible world of possibilities
is everything which matches every legitimate desire and
ambition, and that our own will come to us if we visualize
it intensely enough, persistently enough, and do our best
to make it real, we will no longer live in poverty and misery.
If
you want to get away from poverty, if you wish to demonstrate
abundance, prosperity, you must form the habit of mentally
living in abundance; live in the ideal of what you want;
that is, you must live the prosperity thought, you must
hold the thought of abundance. Saturate yourself with it.
Then the poverty thought cannot touch you. It will be neutralized
because you cannot hold in your mind two opposite thoughts
at the same time, and whatever thought you hold is a real
creative force.
The
great majority of poor people are poor thinkers, poor planners,
and poor executives. They do not think prosperity, they
do not obey the law of opulence, and so they stay poor in
the midst of abundance.
You
can no more attain opulence while holding the opposite thought
than a youth could become a great lawyer by concentrating
upon something else, thinking of other things all the time.
The specialist makes his mind a magnet to attract the thing
he is trying to attain. He dwells upon it, thinks of it,
bends all his energies toward it, dreams it, lives it; and
eventually draws it to him. In the same way, opulence, prosperity,
obeys the law of attraction.
The
idea of opulence must be implanted firmly in the subconscious
mind, just as everything else which we desire to bring about,
to draw out of the universal supply, must be impressed upon
the subconscious mind by registering our vow, our determination
there until it has become a fixed motive or actuating principle.
Then it becomes an active influence in the life, an ever-increasing
mental magnet that attracts the thing desired. Whatever
we wish to bring about in the actual, we must first establish
in the subconscious mind by a constant, positive, affirmative
attitude toward that thing.
It
is because they understand the importance, the imperative
necessity, of this holding of the right mental attitude,
that there is such a tremendous difference between the poverty
of people who have imbibed the new philosophy and those
who are still in the old thought. It is the difference between
poverty with hope, poverty with courage, poverty with the
expectation of something better coming, backed by a faithful
effort to improve ones condition, and the poverty
which is accompanied by despair, the poverty that has no
hope for the future, the poverty that expects nothing better,
that looks forward only to more and probably worse poverty,
more pinching, more want and suffering.
Even
the poverty with hope and expectation of better things is
not a very comfortable state, but there is no despair in
it, there is no real pain in it, there is not much real
distress, because hope sees the goal beyond the blackness,
it gives a light that dispels the gloom of limitation by
showing a vista of good things in process of realization.
It is the poverty which is accompanied by despair, which
sees no light ahead and forces men and women to drudge on
day after day without prospect of relief or hope of betterment
that grinds the life out of its victims. This is the poverty
that kills the spirit that destroys the buoyancy of life,
the gladness and the joy, which are the birthright of every
human being.
The
poverty of those who have seen the light, who have gotten
a glimpse of something better, the poverty which sees something
ahead to work for, may be compared with the temporary discomforts
which a family camping out for the summer may have to put
up with. Knowing that their discomforts are temporary they
make light of them. They do not impair their happiness,
because they know conditions will soon change. They do not
worry about their situation as they would if it were permanent
and could not be remedied.
There
are multitudes of ignorant, undeveloped people who are like
many of the squatters on the desert in the arid lands of
the West. These squatters build shanties and cultivate little
patches around them, raising a few domestic animals to help
them eke out a living. They barely exist, and yet the very
soil from which they hardly get a living is rich with vast
potencies, possibilities of bounteous harvests and the production
of great wealth. If these people knew enough to mix brains
with the soil, or if they would only settle somewhere near
a supply of water so that they could irrigate their farms,
they might live in luxury.
There
is nothing lacking in the land, but it must have water and
intelligence to develop its resources. These would make
the desert fruitful. Water and intelligence mixed with the
soil would perform miracles of cultivation where ignorance
succeeds in producing scarcely enough to support a miserable
existence.
Not
far from such ignorant squatters I have seen a portion of
the same desert land enriched by water and intelligent cultivation
until it had become a veritable Eden of delicious fruits,
vegetables, grains and flowers. Large families were living
comfortably on an incredibly small piece of land, whereas
before the introduction of water they would have half starved
on perhaps a hundred acres.
Most
human beings live all their lives on deserts which are teeming
with marvelous potencies and possibilities, but for lack
of knowledge they live in poverty. Their mental resources
yield nothing because they have not yet been developed.
Some of us get a little irrigation into a corner of our
lives and raise a few vegetables. Some of us cultivate a
few flowers, and now and then one will get water and inspiration
and ambition enough upon a little larger section of his
mental desert and produce something worthwhile. But very
few human beings ever cultivate their entire resources.
The
new philosophy teaches us how to get hold of our resources,
and how to use them, so as to get just what we want. It
teaches us that the source from which all things spring
is in the great cosmic intelligence which fills all space,
and that in this vast cosmic ocean riches inconceivable
are waiting to be objectified and utilized by man. It teaches
us that all these things will respond to the right thought,
the right motive, and that we can call out everything we
desire from this All Supply. It holds that the reason why
our lives are so lean, so pinched and poor, why our achievement
is so limited, so picayune, in comparison with what we are
capable of, is because we do not draw upon the All Supply.
Our
narrow, limited, dwarfed ideals, our poverty-stricken view
of things, the limitations our own thought imposesthese
are the things that rob us of power and keep us in poverty.
Our achievements or our possessions can never outrun our
convictions or our ideals. We fix our own limitations.
When
a man gets lost in the woods he cannot tell the direction
in which he is facing, because he has lost the points of
the compass. Unless a man so lost can see the sun and recover
his bearings, he will walk around in a circle, thinking
he is going in a straight line in a certain direction.
He
makes no advance because he isnt facing toward his
goal. He doesnt know this, but after a while when
he finds he is not getting toward any opening and doesnt
know how long he may wander about in a circle, he gets discouraged.
Millions of people are lost in the dense woods of wrong
thought. They are not traveling toward the goal of prosperity.
They see no light, no way out of the woods, and they lose
courage. They are turned about mentally, and dont
know it.
If
the people in the great failure army today could only be
given prosperity treatments and shown that they are in their
present predicament because of their wrong mental attitude,
because they have been working for one thing and expecting
something else; if they could only be turned squarely about
so that they would face the goal of their desire instead
of turning their backs upon it mentally, an enormous number
of them would even yet make a splendid success of their
lives. That is all that millions of people who are comparative
failures in life, as well as the complete down and
outs, need to be turned about so that they would face
life in the right direction.
What
a pity it is that in this land of opportunity and plenty
our Government should not have institutions conducted by
experts for the treatment of poverty sufferers, those who
are obsessed with the idea that their poverty is unavoidable.
These people are just as much in need of prosperity treatments
as the patients in hospitals are in need of health treatments.
Most of them are curable. They have only lost their way
on the life path and are facing the darkness instead of
the light, facing towards the poverty goal instead of the
prosperity goal. Their mental attitude needs changing so
it will point toward success instead of toward failure,
toward comfort and plenty, opulence, instead of poverty
and limitation. Mental prosperity treatments would kindle
a new hope in their discouraged minds, and expectancy of
good things would take the place of despair. A new light
would come into the eyes of those poor people; and if these
prosperity treatments were administered to poverty sufferers
in every country of the globe the world would take on a
different appearance.
The
time is coming when the State will have trained specialists,
experts in the law of mental opulence, to give such treatments
to the men and women who are in the great failure army,
those who are headed in the wrong direction, those who have
lost their way on the life path. But there is no need for
those now suffering from poverty to wait for the coming
of that time to be cured. Any intelligent person can apply
the law and treat himself for prosperity.
Mental
laws are clear and simple. We know that the fear thought
attracts more fear, the worry thought more worry, the anxious
thought more anxiety, the hatred thought more hatred, the
jealous thought more jealousy, and the poverty thought more
poverty. This is the law of attraction. Like every other
law, it is unalterable.
The
poverty disease can be cured only by its antidotethe
prosperity thought. You carry within you this antidote to
the poison of poverty, of lack, of pinching, dwarfing limitation.
Use it, and cure yourself. The prosperity thought will kill
the poverty germ.
Keep
your supply pipes open between yourself and the infinite
source of all supply. Dont pinch them by doubt, dont
cut off the supply by limiting, pinching, poverty, lack
thought. Keep your supply pipes wide open by the consciousness
of your oneness with the One, your connection with the All
Supply.
Abundance
follows a law as exact as that of the law of mathematics.
If we obey it we get the flow. If we pinch it, strangle
it, we cut off the supply. Suppose a youth who had decided
to study medicine and become a doctor should say to himself:
I cannot picture myself as a success because I dont
know anything about what may come to me. Perhaps I havent
the qualifications that make a successful physician. I may
never become one. I may be a failure. I doubt if I am fitted
for it, but Ill try, anyway. Do you think such
a timid, doubting, negative attitude would ever carry anyone
to the success goal? Of course it wouldnt. The young
medical student who is going to succeed is the one who pictures
himself constantly as a successful physician, sees himself
in a fine office, with a lucrative practice, climbing to
the top of his profession. He is constantly visualizing
himself as a successful physician.
Now,
the same rule applies to the poor man who wants to become
prosperous. He must picture himself as prosperous, he must
obey the law of opulence by holding the ideal of opulence
in his mind, and he must saturate himself with the prosperity
thought, the thought of abundance.
If
you wish to cure yourself of the poverty disease you should
begin by giving yourself prosperity treatments something
like this. Say to yourself, If I am Gods child
I have inherited all the good things of the universe. I
am heir to all supply, to the all-good. Poverty cannot touch
the reality of me any more than disease can, for the reality
of me is health. Health is the everlasting fact, and disease,
sickness, is merely the absence of the reality. Poverty
is not my normal condition. There can be no lack, no poverty
for Gods image. All that my Father hath is mine.
Repeat
daily the twenty-third psalm: The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
he leadeth me beside the still waters, etc. Follow
this during the day with frequent assertions of your kinship
with the Creator of all the universe. Commit these lines
by EllaWheeler Wilcox to memory, and frequently say them
to yourself, vigorously, and with the force of absolute
conviction:
I
am success. Though hungry, cold, ill-clad, I wander for
a while, I smile and say: It is but for a timeI
shall be glad Tomorrow, for good fortune comes my way. God
is my Father, He has wealth untold; His wealth is mine,
health, happiness and gold.
All
the good things you need are yours by inheritance. Claim
them, expect them, work for them, believe they are already
yours, and you will realize them in your life. If you continually
assert your kinship with God your Father, to whom all things
belong, and send out the vigorous thought of abundance,
a generous supply of all you needwhich is your birthrightpoverty
cannot hold you its slave.
I
was recently talking with a man who only a few years ago
was so poor that he and his wife and children were reduced
to a diet of bread and crackers without butter. They couldnt
pay even the cheapest rent or buy themselves comfortable
clothing. In fact, they were rapidly heading toward the
ranks of the down and outs. Today they are living
in luxury, in a sumptuous hotel. They own a beautiful car,
and have all they need to make life comfortable. They do
not appear like the same people who but a comparatively
short time ago were in a condition of semi-starvation.
Whence
the change? Did someone leave them a fortune, or did they
find a gold mine? No, nothing of that sort at all. They
simply realized that their poverty was of their own making,
that the cause of their miserable condition was entirely
mental. And there and then they turned their backs on their
despair environment and resolved that, no matter what appearances
were, they would face the light and struggle toward it.
As a result they began in a very short time to attract better
things.
The
whole family has now taken a new lease of life. The expression
of despair and misery has gone out of their faces, and is
replaced by the light of hope and joy. There is just the
difference in their appearance and condition between despair
and gladness, between the hope and expectation of more of
the good things which belong to them, and the fear of want,
the misery of grinding limitations.
Psychology
is teaching us that all forms of discouragement, despondent
thoughts, thoughts of doubt, of fear, of worry, must be
kept out of the mind, for it cannot create while these enemies
are in possession of the mental kingdom.
We
are finding that in order to create, to build, we must hold
a constructive mental attitude all the time, that we must
keep all negatives, all thoughts of discouragement, despondency,
of possible failure out of the mind. We are learning through
psychology that we can produce only that which we concentrate
upon, that which we constantly think of; that only that
which is dominant in our mind, whether it is beneficial
or injurious will be reproduced in our lives.
Your
mental attitude will lead you into the light or hold you
in darkness. It will lead you to hope or despair, to a glorious
success or a miserable failure, and it is entirely within
your own power to choose which it shall be.
Successful
people, without knowing it, perhaps, are constantly giving
themselves prosperity treatments, success treatments, by
encouraging themselves, by making their minds positive,
so that they will be immune from all negative, discouraging,
poverty thought currents. Holding the success thought, the
prosperity ideal, constantly dwelling upon ones successful
future, expecting it, working for it,these are, whether
you know it or not, success, prosperity treatments.
Take,
for example, men like Charles M. Schwab. Ever since Mr.
Schwab was a poor boy starting in life he has been giving
himself success treatments. He has held the ideal of prosperity,
the vigorous, robust determination to be successful, to
be prosperous. He has always faced the prosperity goal.
If he had allowed himself to yield to the many discouragements
he has had he never would have been the worlds greatest
steel master today, perhaps the greatest that ever lived.
But he always triumphed over these negative, destructive,
discouraging thoughts, by insisting on holding to the prosperity,
the success, ideal.
Suppose
that every little while Mr. Schwab should stop holding the
success ideal and should indulge in discouraging, despondent
thoughts, allow himself to get down in the dumps and feel
that good fortune was deserting him, what do you think the
result would be? Why, he would probably lose more in a single
day by such negative treatments than he could neutralize
in a week of prosperity treatments.
Every
time you indulge in discouraging and gloomy, despondent
thoughts, every time you allow yourself to get down in the
dumps or in the blues, you are tearing down what you have
been trying to build up by your success treatments, by holding
the prosperous thought. Your attitude is hostile to prosperity,
and your very atmosphere blights and strangles it. You practically
say, I long to have you, Mr. Prosperity, but I dont
believe I ever will. You were evidently not intended for
me, for everything I do ends in failure. There must be some
strange fate that is keeping me from the success and prosperity
I want. I really never expect to be prosperous, although
I am working hard to get you, Mr. Prosperity.
It
is such a mental attitude as this that is driving prosperity
away from multitudes of people. If you want to better your
condition you must get away from the conviction of poverty,
you must keep the want thought, the poverty thought and
conviction out of your mind; for these connect you all the
time with the poverty and the lack thought currents from
other like minds.
Multitudes
of people through ignorance of the law condemn themselves
to lives of poverty. They do not realize that, every time
they think or say that they never expect to get away from
the clutches of want, that no matter how hard they work
there is nothing but the everlasting drudgery, grind and
poverty for them, that fate is against them and they are
doomed to remain poor, they are confirming and strengthening
poverty conditions.
If
we are ever going to enjoy abundance, we must talk abundance
and freedom, not poverty and limitation. We must think abundance
and not dam the stream of our supply so that we will get
little drizzles instead of a generous flow.
What
would you think of a prince who should go away from his
fathers palace and live in a poverty-stricken environment,
in the midst of lack and want, and who should constantly
claim that he couldnt do any better, that this was
what was intended for him? You would say that it was his
own fault; that there was plenty in his fathers house
and that it was his any time he chose to claim it; that
the fatted calf and the royal robe were always waiting for
him.
Yet
most of us act just as foolishly. There is plenty of everything
waiting for you in the All-Supply in our Fathers house.
It is yours by right of inheritance. Why dont you
claim it? You cannot get it until you do claim it, any more
than the prodigal son could enjoy his fathers bounty
while he continued to put it from him and feed instead on
the husks of swine.
Prosperity,
or opulence, in the larger sense in which we use it, is
everything that is good for us, an abundance of all that
is beautiful, uplifting and inspiring in life. It is everything
that will enrich the personality, the experience, the spiritual
life.
This
opulence, which includes everything we can desire, is intended
for all Gods children. All we have to do to participate
in it is to reach out into the cosmic intelligence with
our thought, with our ideals, our aspirations and attract
our own.