Prosperity Key No. 3

Prosperity has had only one connotation for too long money.  In previous chapters we have redefined prosperity in more holistic terms; now let's take a new look at what money really is.
     The subject of money has a powerful emotional charge, equivalent to the subject of sex.  Yet, we will usually talk about it only like the weather - in general economic terms.  In this age of open discussion on homosexuality, menstruation, and incest, it is interesting that we are still very closed in what we reveal about our money.  The subject of our inner feelings Concerning money is one of the last things to come out of the closet.  Why?
     When we think of having money, we think of opportunities for independence, leisure, privacy, time to do and act as we wish.  Unfortunately, a lack of money translates into yet another reason to put ourselves down.
     We have built a complex of myths and voodoo around the idea of money as an entity - an end in itself.  We have personified it, and attributed characteristics to it as if it were a savior.  How many times have we said, "If only I had enough money!" At the same time, we have created a concept of money as an active, negative agent.  We have done this through our conscious and unconscious myths which support a negative morality system about what money does to people.  We end up both desiring and fearing money.
     I can remember a time when I didn't want to talk about money, or even think about it.  I felt squeamish asking for money due me.  And in establishing a price for anything, I always hoped that somehow the other per-son just 'knew' how much was fair so we would not have to discuss it.  I even fancied what it would be like to live in a community of total barter, so no money would have to be exchanged.
     It wasn't until later that I found out I wasn't alone - many people are uneasy when they must receive, ask for, and speak of money. Fortunately, there are different ways of looking at money: what it is, and isn't; what it can and can't do.  Examining our concepts of money can open up issues concerning giving and taking that are important in all aspects of life.
     The basis for understanding and being comfortable with money is just one more aspect of our self-awareness.  For example, from repeated studies in human behavior, we know that one of the factors by which we judge ourselves and others is money - how much we make, how we make it, and how we spend it.  This constitutes part of our 'market value'.  To many of us then, speaking of income is really speaking of our 'value'.
     When we have a low self-image, we sometimes try to compensate for these feelings both by trying to increase our 'value' and by trying to keep this 'value' hidden.  We want to avoid facing a low opinion from others if our value figure is not as high as we think it should be.
     An example of wanting to hide our 'value' is deciding not to invite people to dinner because we have only mismatched glasses and china.  When we are devaluing ourselves from lack of money, we may feel ashamed at gatherings of friends or family who talk about travel, shopping, or prestigious colleges for the kids.  We may put ourselves down because we don't have the money to shop or travel, or because our kids are only going to work, instead of college.

     The self-esteem and money issue is further confused by the rather shaky image of what having that 'green stuff 'means.  Although everyone wants more money, the idea of having wealth is tainted.  On one side of the coin, money is thought to be highly desirable; on the other side, it is considered bad and almost 'dirty'.
     Most of the cultural arguments making prosperity a moral issue are never made out loud.  The ideas that we can't or shouldn't be financially prosperous are projected subliminally in the form of myths or beliefs.  Whether we live it or not, one of our strong Judaic-Christian beliefs is that hard work and toil are rewards in themselves.  It is also part of our tradition that poverty is a virtue.  Religi-ous teachings from the Bible have even been interpreted as confirming that poverty is somehow 'holy'.
     For example, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," has been frequently quoted to condemn wealth and praise poverty.  With better un-derstanding of the old Arabic translations, however, new interpretation among biblical scholars shows that the original intention of this and other passages was positive.  With new research, we now know the word poor originally meant humble and receptive, not poverty-stricken. To receive is to open oneself to one's vulnerabil-ity - to let go of control.  The message seems to have been that the world is full of givers; what we need to learn is to receive - to open ourselves to our vulnerability.
     Other passages, such as, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven," have been used to prove that being wealthy is morally wrong.  According to modern-day scholars, this passage originally referred not to hav-ing money itself but rather to the difficulties inherent when we are controlled by our possessions rather than being in control of them.
     Everything reflects our consciousness, and there is little value in staying in the consciousness of poverty.  Someone has remarked that the best thing we can do for the poor is not to be one of them.  This is not being unloving.  It is a statement of not accepting poverty as inevitable.  Poverty helps no one.
     Other biblical passages point out another, more prosperous attitude toward life:

"Ask and it shall be given you;
Seek and ye shall find;
Knock, and the door shall be opened unto you."

"Money is the root of all evil."
"Money won't buy you happiness."
"Easy come, easy go.  "
"I may be poor, but I'm happy.

     Money is commonly defined as a medium of exchange.  What we are exchanging is energy.  Money is a concept symbolizing the exchange of potential energy.  It is stored energy made visible.
     It is obvious that, like everything else, money is in itself neither good nor bad.  It is neither moral nor im-moral.  To look at money as a moral issue is as absurd as it is to decide that airplanes are good or bad.  We feel differently about airplanes when they are used to drop napalm bombs than when they are used to drop food supplies for starving people.  Yet they are the same planes.  The moral issue is in the intention of the user - not in the plane itself.  Money can be used to promote life, and love, and can be a blessing for many, or it can be used to destroy the life force in a million different ways.

     Accumulation of wealth has long meant having more than one's share, and gaining at the expense of others.  We are reminded of the 'Robber -Barons' of all ages -companies and individduals whose assets are the result of exploitation.  The 'get-rich-quick'ers with a 'to hell with the means' attitude have poisoned our minds about money with the beliefs that (1) what one has to do to gain wealth is to steal, and (2) wealth (i.e., greed) ruins the human soul.  When we point to those who misuse money selfishly as proof that money is bad, we are confusing the pirate with his ship.
    A ship is indifferent as to who is at its wheel.  It responds just as swiftly to a scoundrel as to a saint if both are equally skilled in the laws of sailing.  Carefully loaded, its hull will carry contraband arms to thieves just as safely as it would emergency medical supplies to a disaster area.  Ships, like money, are just there to be used as resources.  How some people in the past have used them does not change their value.
     When we are prospering naturally, we are using a holistic approach to achievement within a 'win-win' position.  We do not need to rely on taking from or exploit-ing others.  With this kind of prosperity, loving money is loving the good it can do for us, and for everyone else.  Prosper-ity in this sense is appreciating money as a means for exchanging good for all.

     Money brings power.  Money has no power in itself, but having control over how it will be spent gives us power.  The more money we have, the more potential power we have.
     Goethe said, "Nobody should be rich but those who understand it." His point is that many can become pros-perous quickly, but not always develop awareness, scruples, or concern for others.  They can lose their money just as quickly, or in some way pay dearly for it, if they do not develop their prosperity consciousness.
     If we are going to ask for power in great amounts, we had better be prepared to handle it.  An example of what happens when we are unprepared for the power of money emerged during a recent follow-up study of the million-dollar lottery sweepstake winners in Canada.  The vast majority of them were broke within five years.  Their prosperity consciousness was not developed to the point where they could benefit from the money for very long.
     You will either control or be controlled by money.  Awareness of the power of money, and of how to handle it, makes the difference.  It is the conscious choice to use money benevolently that puts you in control.

     The stored energy that money symbolizes is there to help us grow.  This energy must keep moving.  Effectively directing this movement of energy requires an under-standing of how the laws of prosperity operate in giving, receiving, spending, and saving.  Responsibility of money is knowing where we want to go with this energy.

     Money doesn't grow by being hoarded.  Hoarding is for beggars.  It doesn't benefit anyone to grab as much as possible and keep it stashed away in vaults or coffee cans.  Trying to prosper by bottling up money through accumulation will result in the opposite negative effect.  We hear tragic stories of those individuals who die each year in poverty with their 'wealth' stuffed in their mat-tresses.  It served no one, least of all them.
     In all of life, receiving depends upon giving.  There are no separate rules for money.  All spending is part of the circulating flow of giving - when done in the right spirit.  Try it out.  Next time you spend, see yourself as giving to benefit others as well as yourself.  Spending with love can be a new experience.  Just as work can be love in action so, too, money can be love expressed. When we give in this spirit, our return is multiplied many times.
     Spending is no problem for some people.  It can be too easy, in fact.  After a few experiences of succumbing to the temptation of unlimited credit, leading eventually to unlimited debt, they quickly discover the pain of over-spending, of being out of balance at the other end of the spectrum.
     Part of the responsibility that goes along with the power of money is knowing how to save and invest for a purpose.  Ralph Waldo Emerson, for example, saw money as a 'stewardship', or challenge.  To him, each person with money has a mandate to use that money to ,carve out work for others.
     How do you use money?  What plans or direction do you see for your money?  What seeds are being planted with your money?
     If the farmer has no plan, and throws her seeds hither and yon, she not only wastes her resources, she has only a small crop in return.  And she cannot tend her crop if it is scattered.  Start planning for your future now by invest-ing in yourself.  Spend some time today thinking about how you feel about money.  Ask yourself:

Are you willing to create the money your life dream would cost?
What is 'being poor' to you?  How does that feel?
How do You feel about wealthy people?
How do You feel about earning 'a lot' of money?
How do you want to receive your money?
How do you want to help others with your money?
How are you uncomfortable around money?
What do you want to have achieved with your money when you die?

Jana Janus, graphic artist, owner and operator of Janatype, a typesetting and graphic art service.

Q: Do you feel like a Prospering Woman?

A: Yes, for the first time in my life I can say I feel prosperous.  It's all due to a career change I've recently made.  Before, I had been trying to scrimp, save, sell everything I had, piece by piece to afford to do what I love to do - organizing and leading rafting expeditionns.  I finally figured out that I could do what I wanted without giving up everything, or working longer hours.  I needed to receive more for the hours I did work.  Once I became receptive to the idea of a new type of career, I soon got a chance to learn an entirely new skill.  This skill brought me more money than before with less hours.

Q: You are referring to typesetting?

A: Yes, but it's more than typesetting.  The entire scope of
graphic arts is now available to me.  Typesetting brings me into contact with people who are doing books and all manner of interesting projects.  This means that I can use all of my art training and sense of design.  I even have the opportunity to learn camera work.  I'm doing everything right up to handing the work over to a printer.  I wouldn't have believed last year that I would be doing this-but it's exactly what I was looking for.

Q: You went in the back door toward what you wanted.

A: Yes.  In my being, I'm an artist.  I had wanted to incorporate art with a meaningful type of occupation.  I never wanted to sit in a tower and paint.  I wanted art plus something.  It's not surprising I arrived at this.  I've done a lot of putting pictures and words together.  As a kid I made picture books and served them together with yarn.  I made little books for my children on their lives.

Q: What decisions are you aware of that led you to your prosperity?

A: One decision I made two years ago still sticks in my mind very clearly.  I saw a Dover catalog at a friend's house.  It had many wonderful drawings, wood-cuts, and lithographs - all copyright free material.  I poured over it with delight.  I re-member saying out loud, "I want to be doing this kind of thing." From that moment, even though I didn't know the meaning of the word, I started to see myself as a 'graphic artist'.
I called up the local college and examined their course outlines for 'graphic art'.  I was determined to know more about this work.  The real changes in my life started to take place, however, when I decided to deal with issues around money.  I started thinking about what money meant for me.  I enrolled in an EST seminar called "About Money," where I heard that money is a way of expressing oneself.  But I went beyond that.  I started to put attention on my whole attitude toward money: how I paid my bills and spent my money.  I began to realize that I was standing in my own way of prosperity by my feelings and thoughts about money.  I had been holding a negative attitude toward money itself.

Q: How did this prevent your prosperity?

A: For years I was a righteous hippy - anti-capitalist, anti-everything.  I had never accepted much of anything.  If it was 'this', I was 'that'.  Those experiences were deeply important to me at the time; but I began to realize I had a whole dynamic inside me that was anti-anything that was going to elevate me. I could not see myself successful.
     During this time of 'inner work' on money, I began to develop an internal trust that no matter what happened, I would have 'enough'.  It was the first time I put money in the realm of spirit.  I was finally able to see what I was doing through a series of drawings I did.  I drew pictures to answer the questions: "How do you see your money trip right now?" and "How would you like it to be?" The first picture came out as a large gray funnel with paper money dropping in the top, but only coins falling out the bottom.  I realized that was exactly how I felt about money in my life.  No matter how much came in, it was always an inadequate amount by the time it went through my system.
     The second picture, on how I wanted it to be, was done with every pastel color of the rainbow.  It had a big 'source'- a circle of light and love - in the center.  Spiralling off this circle, or I source,' were colorful appendages - each a different shade of the rainbow.  Each appendage had the word God, hearts, or dollar signs on it.
     This is how I wanted to see money in my life.  I wanted it totally connected to me in a spiritual, loving way.  Until then, my picture of money had been that it was a harmful weapon.  It was a tool that people hurt each other with.  I wanted to see it in abundance - lots of it, with loving intention on it.
     I had never experienced abundance in any way in my life.  I had thought that money came from one source - my job.  I had thought that all my money must squeak through that little job tunnel.  From my drawing, I saw that money can come from any number of sources.  I can still feel how that idea scared and shocked me.  Abundance is vast - infinite.
     What's happening now is that I am doing typesetting for all my friends, old and new.  Every single job has been filled with love and caring; I am affectionately dealt with.  Last week I got a card from a friend I had done work for, saying "You're wonder-ful.  " That's the kind of energy I'm dealing with in typesetting and earning lots of money besides!
     I drew that picture depicting what I wanted, and that is what is now happening!

Q: You created the picture, and now the picture is creat-ing your experience?

A: That's right.  And talk about abundance!  Nearly every per-son I meet wants some kind of typesetting done - Money is coming at me from all sides - in the form and manner I wouldn't have dreamed possible a few years ago.