I'd like to get back to my list of questions.
There's so much more detail I want to go into on every one of these. We
could do a whole book on relationships alone, and I know that. But then
I'd never get to my other questions.
There'll be other
times, other places. Even other books. I'm with you. Let's move on. We'll
come back to it here if we have time.
Okay. My next question, then: Why can't I ever seem to
attract enough money in my life? Am I destined to be forever scrimping and
scraping? What is blocking me from realizing my full potential regarding
money?
The condition is
manifested not just by you, but by a great many people.
Everyone tells
me it's a problem of self-worth; a lack of self-worth. I've had a dozen
New Age teachers tell me that lack of anything is always traceable to lack
of self-worth.
That is a convenient
simplification. In this case your teachers are wrong. You do not suffer
from a lack of self-worth. Indeed, your greatest challenge all your life
has been to control your ego. Some have said it's been a case of too
much self-worth!
Well, here I
am, embarrassed and chagrined again, but You are right.
You keep saying
you're embarrassed and chagrined every time I simply tell the truth about
you. Embarrassment is the response of a person who still has an ego
investment in how others see him. Invite yourself to move past that.
Try a new response. Try laughter.
Okay.
Self-worth is not
your problem. You are blessed with an abundance of it. Most people are.
You all think very highly of yourself, as rightly you should. So
self-worth, for the great mass of the people, is not the problem.
What is?
The problem is lack
of understanding of the principles of abundance together, usually, with a
massive misjudgment about what is "good" and what is "evil."
Let Me give you an
example.
Please do.
You carry a thought around that money is bad. You also
carry a thought around that God is good. Bless you! Therefore, in your
thought system, God and money do not mix.
Well, in a
sense, I guess, that's true. That is how I think.
This makes things
interesting, because this then makes it difficult for you to take money
for any good thing.
I mean, if a thing is
judged very "good" by you, you value it less in terms of money. So
the "better" something is (i.e., the more worthwhile), the less money
it's worth.
You are not alone in
this. Your whole society believes this. So your teachers make a pittance
and your stripteasers, a fortune. Your leaders make so little compared to
sports figures that they feel they have to steal to make up the
difference. Your priests and your rabbis live on bread and water while you
throw coins at entertainers.
Think about it.
Everything on which you place a high intrinsic value, you insist
must come cheaply. The lonely research scientist seeking a cure for AIDS
goes begging for money, while the woman who writes a book on a hundred new
ways to have sex and creates tapes and weekend seminars to go with it...
makes a fortune.
This
having-it-all-backwards is a propensity with you, and it stems from wrong
thought.
The wrong thought is
your idea about money. You love it, and yet you say it is the root of all
evil. You adore it, and yet you call it "filthy lucre." You say that a
person is "filthy rich." And if a person does become wealthy doing
"good" things, you immediately become suspect. You make that "wrong."
So, a doctor had
better not make too much money, or had better learn to be discreet about
it. And a minister- whoa! She'd really better not make lots
of money (assuming you'll even let a "she" be a minister), or
there'll surely be trouble.
You see, in your
mind, a person who chooses the highest calling should get the
lowest pay...
Hmmm.
Yes, "hmmm' is right.
You should think about that. Because it is such wrong thought.
I thought there was no such thing as wrong or right.
There isn't. There is
only what serves you, and what does not. The terms "right" and "wrong" are
relative terms, and I use them that way when I use them at all. In this
case, relative to what serves you- relative to what you say you
want- your money thoughts are wrong thoughts.
Remember, thoughts
are creative. So if you think money is bad, yet think yourself good...
well, you can see the conflict.
Now you, in
particular, My son, act out this race consciousness in a very big way. For
most people the conflict is not nearly so enormous as for you. Most people
do what they hate for a living, so they don't mind taking money for it.
"Bad" for the "bad," so to speak. But you love what you do with the days
and times of your life. You adore the activities with which you cram them.
For you, therefore,
to receive large amounts of money for what you do would be, in your
thought system, taking "bad" for the "good" and that is unacceptable to
you. You'd rather starve than take "filthy lucre" for pure service... as
if somehow the service loses its purity if you take money for it.
So here we have this
real ambivalence about money. Part of you rejects it, and part of you
resents not having it. Now, the universe doesn't know what to do about
that, because the universe has received two different thoughts from you.
So your life with regard to money is going to go in fits and starts,
because you keep going in fits and starts about money.
You don't have a
clear focus; you're not really sure what's true for you. And the universe
is just a big Xerox machine. It simply produces multiple copies of your
thoughts.
Now there's only one
way to change all that. You have to change your thought about it.
How can I
change the way I think? The way I think about something is the way
I think about something. My thoughts, my attitudes, my ideas were not
created in a minute. I have to guess they are the result of years of
experience, a lifetime of encounters. You are right about the way I think
about money, but how do I change that?
This could be the
most interesting question in the book. The usual method of creation for
most human beings is a three-step process involving thought, word, and
deed, or action.
First comes thought;
the formative idea; the initial concept. Then comes the word. Most
thoughts ultimately form themselves into words, which are often then
written or spoken. This gives added energy to the thought, pushing it out
into the world, where it can be noticed by others.
Finally, in some
cases words are put into action, and you have what you call a result; a
physical world manifestation of what all started with a thought.
Everything around you
in your man-made world came into being in this way- or some variation of
it. All three creation centers were used.
But now comes the
question: how to change a Sponsoring Thought?
Yes, that is a very
good question. And a very important one. For if humans do not change some
of their Sponsoring Thoughts, humankind could doom itself to extinction.
The most rapid way to
change a root thought, or sponsoring idea, is to reverse the
thought-word-deed process.
Explain that.
Do the deed that you
want to have the new thought about. Then say the words that you want to
have your new thought about. Do this often enough and you'll train the
mind to think a new way.
Train the mind?
Isn't that like mind control? Isn't that just mental manipulation?
Do you have any idea
how your mind came up with the thoughts it now has? Do you not know
that your world has manipulated your mind to think as you do? Wouldn't
it be better for you to manipulate your mind than for the world to?
Would you not be
better off to think the thoughts you want to think, than those of others?
Are you not better armed with creative thoughts than with reactive
thoughts?
Yet your mind is
filled with reactive thought- thought that springs from the experience of
others. Very few of your thoughts spring from self-produced data, much
less self-produced preferences.
Your own root thought
about money is a prime example. Your thought about money (it is bad) runs
directly counter to your experience (it's great to have money!). So you
have to run around and lie to yourself about your experience in order to
justify your root thought.
You are so rooted
in this thought, it never occurs to you that your idea about
money may be inaccurate.
So now what we are up
to is coming up with some self-produced data. And that is how we
change a root thought, and cause it to be your root thought, not
another's.
You have one more
root thought about money, by the way, which I've yet to mention.
What's that?
That there's not
enough. In fact you have this root thought about just about everything.
There's not enough money, there's not enough time, there's not enough
love, there's not enough food, water, compassion in the world... Whatever
there is that's good, there's just not enough.
This race
consciousness of "not-enough-ness" creates and recreates the world as you
see it.
Okay, so I have
two root thoughts- Sponsoring Thoughts- to change about money.
Oh, at least two.
Probably many more. Let's see. money is bad... money is scarce... money
may not be received for doing God's work (that's a big one with you)...
money is never given freely... money doesn't grow on trees
(when, in fact, it does)... money corrupts.
I see I've got
a lot of work to do.
Yes, you do, if
you're not happy with your present money situation. On the other hand,
it's important to understand that you're unhappy with your present money
situation because you're unhappy with your present money situation.
Sometimes
You're hard to follow.
Sometimes you're hard
to lead.
Say, listen,
You're the God here. Why don't You make it easy to understand?
I
have made it easy to
understand.
Then why don't
You just cause me to understand, if that's what You truly want?
I truly want what you
truly want- nothing different and nothing more. Don't you see that is My
greatest gift to you? If I wanted for you something other than what you
want for you, and then went so far as to cause you to have it,
where is your free choice? How can you be a creative being if I am
dictating what you shall be, do, and have? My joy is in your freedom,
not your compliance.
Okay, what did
You mean, I'm unhappy with my money situation because I'm unhappy with my
money situation?
You are what you
think you are. It's a vicious circle when the thought is a negative one.
You've got to find a way to break out of the circle.
So much of your
present experience is based on your previous thought. Thought leads to
experience, which leads to thought, which leads to experience. This can
produce constant joy when the Sponsoring Thought is joyous. It can, and
does, produce continual hell when the Sponsoring Thought is hellatious.
The trick is to
change Sponsoring Thought. I was about to illustrate how to do that.
Go.
Thank you.
The first thing to do
is reverse the thought-word-deed paradigm. Do you remember the old adage,
"Think before you act"?
Yes.
Well, forget it. If
you want to change a root thought, you have to act before you think.
Example: you're
walking down the street and come across an old lady begging for quarters.
You realize she's a bag lady and is living day-to-day. You instantly know
that as little money as you have, you surely have enough to share with
her. Your first impulse is to give her some change. There's even a part of
you that's ready to reach in your pocket for a little folding money- a
one, or even a five. What the heck, make it a grand moment for her. Light
her up.
Then, thought comes
in. What, are you crazy? We've only got seven dollars to get us
through the day! You want to give her a five? So you start fumbling
around for that one.
Thought again: Hey,
hey, c'mon. You don't have that many of these that you can just give
them away! Give her some coins, for heaven's sake, and let's get out
of here.
Quickly you reach
into the other pocket to try to come up with some quarters. Your fingers
feel only nickels and dimes. You're embarrassed. Here you are, fully
clothed, fully fed, and you're going to nickel-and-dime this poor woman
who has nothing.
You try in vain to
find a quarter or two. Oh, there's one, deep in the fold of your pocket.
But by now you've walked past her, smiling wanly, and it's too late to go
back. She gets nothing. You get nothing, either. Instead of the joy of
knowing your abundance and sharing, you now feel as poor as the woman.
Why didn't you
just give her the paper money! lt was your first impulse,
but your thought got in the way.
Next time, decide to
act before you think. Give the money. Go ahead! You've got it, and there's
more where that came from. That's the only thought which separates you
from the bag lady. You're clear there's more where that came from, and she
doesn't know that.
When you want to
change a root thought, act in accordance with the new idea you have. But
you must act quickly, or your mind will kill the idea before you know it.
I mean that literally. The idea, the new truth, will be dead in you
before you've had a chance to know it.
So act quickly when
the opportunity arises, and, if you do this often enough, your mind will
soon get the idea. It will be your new thought.
Oh, I just got
something! Is that what's meant by the New Thought Movement?
If not, it should be.
New thought is your only chance. It's your only real opportunity to
evolve, to grow, to truly become Who You Really Are.
Your mind is right
now filled with old thoughts. Not only old thoughts, but mostly someone
else's old thoughts. It's important now, it's time now, to change your
mind about some things. This is what evolution is all about.
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