Prosperity Key No. 7

      Have you ever stopped to notice the over-flowing abundance of nature and wondered if you too were born to prosper naturally?  We have all we need at birth to develop into the miraculous mental and physical beings that we become as adults.  Doesn't it make sense that, like the rest of nature, we would be equipped at birth with all the seeds necessary for our prosperous growth?
     If prosperity is a natural condition, why does it seem so hard?  Because, unlike the rest of nature, we humans must exercise choice in the development of our prosperity.  Unlike plants and other creatures in the animal kingdom, we are self-aware, with the ability to choose to develop a higher consciousness.  Choice then becomes the means and the end because our growth - our prosperity - comes from our choice in the way we use our minds.
     We are part of nature, but we are not blown by the wind and planted in the earth.  We can decide where and when to plant our seeds.  They are under our control.  We can live a life being a victim, being dependent, responding automatically, or playing it safe in every way, and we will survive.  But if we want to plant those seeds of prosperity that we were all born with, we must deliberately choose to do so.
     The source, or seed, of all prosperity is in the full use of our creative mind.  By mind I mean more than brain.  Our brain is only one small part of our mind.  The mind refers to the information received from the total self - the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual self.  The extent to which we choose to listen to and act upon the information from this mind is the extent to which we will prosper.
     Your thought, in the form of intuitive hunches, dreams, and gut reactions, is your connection with your total creative mind.  To help you act on the information given by your creative urges, you can begin by understanding the power of thought.
     Here are four major points to consider when starting to use the power of creative thinking:

1. To develop your consciousness of prosperity, observe every day how you are creating with your thought.

     We first create in mental form everything we desire to produce in physical form.  Look around you.  Everything you see at this moment that is human-made - whatever you wear, sit on, eat with, live in - was once only an idea in someone's mind.  Think back over the last thing you created - a cake, a manuscript, a clean house, a painting, peace between two people - everything you do has the same beginning.  It starts with a thought in your mind.  It may happen so fast you don't notice it, but every move you make is preceded by a thought.  We can literally say that we are our thoughts.
     Review your day today.  The quality of your day reflects the state of your mind.  On days you feel up and high, everything looks terrific, even if it didn't yesterday. When you are feeling good, you produce good work.
     The power and persuasiveness of our thought is so incredible that it is awesome to try to describe.  There is nothing that has been invented, discovered, or achieved that did not start as an idea.  Every war, public program, or miraculous physical feat had its origin in thought.  Thus we are totally surrounded and affected daily by the results of concentrated consciousness from hundreds of thousands of people whose minds came into agreement to produce our cultural accomplishments - bridges, buildings, systems of all sorts.  These projects are further proof of the power of collective thought.
     Just having the original idea, of course, is not enough to manifest it into material reality.  Ninety percent of our ideas die upon conception, or soon afterward.  At best, ten percent survive long enough to become somewhat developed, and perhaps five percent see the light of day.

     Even developed thought alone is not enough.  It must be combined with belief.  Unless you believe in your idea, it will die.  Thought is the striking of the match, and belief is the keg of dynamite - the power behind the creative thought.  Intention is the hand that strikes the match.  You must know what you truly want - what your intention is - or you end up setting off kegs of dynamitee in all directions as if they were firecrackers on the Fourth of July.  Everybody enjoys firecrackers - but their effect is short-lived.  >Getting what you want out of life requires aligning thoughts, beliefs, and intentions.  Your actions will then automatically bring your desires.
     What does this mean to us?
     It means that no matter what our history, we are never helpless victims.  We have the power to change, to be what we want to be, to have what we want to have.  That power is our thought.  When our thoughts are repeated often enough, they form a pattern.  These thought-patterns actually program our minds.  Whatever we are programming our minds to create, they create.

2.  For a thought to be generative, it must be sharply outlined or defined in the mind.

     We tend to think about our wants in vague, undifferentiated, dream-like states, without putting much mind-energy behind them.  That is because we find it difficult to believe that we can have what we want in life.
     Wishful thinking has little power to manifest, but that isn't its purpose.  A wish is only a spark - it is similar to the starter on an engine.  You couldn't drive your car around the block using your starter, but that's not what it's meant for.  If you really wanted to read a book, would you try to do so with a match when you have a candle?

     The real power of manifestation is in the conscious and unconscious state of expectation.  What we wish for, and what we expect, must be deliberately combined in order to create in reality positive prospering conditions.
     Belief systems are the basis of our expectations.  Changing our expectations to align them more with what we want now may require challenging our beliefs.  We don't give up our beliefs easily, however.
     The painful part about growing is always this constant challenge to our belief systems - our concepts about what makes life work.  The pain comes from not wanting to let go of a position that has helped us get to wherever we are.  Beliefs are a two-edged sword.  They motivate us, keep us highly charged and moving, and at the same time, limit our access to other horizons.
     Examples of limiting concepts I heard as a child - "Life isn't a bed of roses, you know!" and "What you want and what you get are two different things" - indicated to me that I should expect pain and misery in life, and not much of what I wanted.

     Actually our whole concept of reality is limited until we experience the fact that the only reality there is, is what we tell ourselves.  What we believe, we become.
     Because we act as if our beliefs are true, they have both positive and negative effects.  When we perceive the world as a finished product with the rules and decisions already made, we walk around on egg shells, trying to 'fit into' this world, fearful of disturbing the pre-existent order.  Wouldn't it be more fun to sense this world as a giant pile of raw lumber just there for us to help create something better?  This attitude would bring out the creative power we were born with.  We want to allow our dreams to become clearer, and learn to expect to win, to really make a difference.

3. In order to understand your creative, manifesting power, you need to differentiate between the roles of the conscious and the subconscious aspects of the mind.

     The conscious mind has the task of deciding what we want to create in our lives.  It does this by sorting out our thoughts, judging and discriminating among them.  Using past and present knowledge, plus all the input of the senses, it weighs evidence, makes priorities, and plans for the future.  Best of all, it is under our direct control.
     Not so the subconscious.  Our knowledge of this aspect of mind is limited: we both fear and stand in awe of it. The subconscious was long ago acknowledged by Carl Jung and others as the power base of our being, the real source behind our creativity.
     We are wary of being controlled by this power, especially when we feel pulled into actions that we do not consciously accept as beneficial.  At those times it seems as if our deep-gut desires have taken over completely, ignoring our rational decisions.  When that happens we feel controlled by the subconscious, yet almost helpless to stop it.

     Harnessing the incredible power of this machine, the subconscious, is what manifestation is all about.  The task is one of the most exciting and rewarding challenges of our lives.  Even at this moment our actions are being determined by this nucleus of energy - how wonderful if we could be in the driver's seat handling the reins!

      Our subconscious mind is basically composed of 'pictures' of all our conscious thought-patterns developed over a lifetime.  Any pattern of thought that is allowed to remain in our conscious mind long enough will eventually 'sink into' our subconscious as a symbol representing those thoughts. All worries, fears, strongly felt desires, convictions, or beliefs that feel like they are a 'part of us' are the kind of thoughts we usually keep around long enough to slip into our subconscious.  When they do, they form a belief system stored in symbolic imagery.  These images, which we have programmed in over the years, run our lives by unconsciously determining our actions and bring to us the positive or negative conditions they represent.
     The subconscious mind is subjective in nature.  This means that, unlike the conscious mind; it does not discriminate between thoughts.  All are treated equally.  The essence of the conscious thoughts that have penetrated the subconscious are therefore accepted subjectively, without concern for their being right, wrong, good, or bad.  If the conscious mind has said so, it is so to the subconscious.
     The conscious mind soon loses access to these old thoughts, concepts, and decisions; but the subconscious never forgets.  Change comes only when some new thought with a stronger emotional impact 'seeps through' from the conscious mind to counteract the first directive.  In the meantime, the subconscious is moving the organism, robot-like, toward the programmed goal.
     In this way, the subconscious is similar to an automatic pilot device that has been given coded messages about how to run a ship over the years, and is responding accordingly. All is well until the needs of the ship's captain change, and she finds the automatic device has rusted in place and no one knows how to reprogram it.
     The importance of realizing the subjective nature of the subconscious is to understand that the subconscious cannot say NO.  It is our impersonal 'genie' who can only reply YES, totally accepting conscious thought as an absolute dictator.  Whatever the conscious mind dwells upon becomes the orders for the subconscious to produce.
     That is both good news and bad news.  The bad news is that because our culture, as most others, is so negative-prone, most of our programming has been influenced by negative thought - not only our own thought but all of those around us.  From birth, we have experienced daily a bombardment of negativity from parents, teachers, peers, fellow workers, and mates.  Their intention is not negative; they are the result of their own negative programming too.
     Nevertheless, the results are the same.  It is all too easy for us to discuss in great detail what is wrong with us and others - what we can't do, what they did wrong, what we should have done, ways we ought to change, and why we can't.  By clinging to our negative thoughts, we have unwittingly allowed these attitudes to slip into the subconscious and dominate our creative energy.
     Proof that our thoughts affect us, in both positive and negative ways, is easy to find.  Faces, bodies, and actions of people around us reflect if they are happy, self-achieving, fulfilled people.  When you are thinking joy, you are emanating joy all around you.  Conversely, if your mind is absorbed with worry, doubt, and fear, that shows too.  We attract or repel people according to our thoughts - When you think negatively, you turn away joy and love.

     The good news is that we now have a chance to modify all this negativity in our lives.  We can do it through deliberate, continuous, conscious canceling of negative thought and substituting positive patterns.

4. The thought most deeply impressed upon the subconscious creates what we manifest in our lives.

      It is our choice, and within our power, to deliberately select the thoughts we consciously hold.
     By consciously repeating strongly desired thought-goals for a sufficient amount of time, we are actually programming our subconscious to produce that goal.  Once programmed, this great impersonal computer has no choice but to produce, without question, what we ask for, indefinitely.
      This is where the role of the will plays its crucial part in manifesting.  Many have mistakenly tried to use their will to push, shove, and force behavior to conform to their decisions of the ideal.  The true role of the will is to be a guardian over our thoughts.  Its task is to make sure that all our thoughts positively support our goals.  By keeping negative thoughts out of the conscious mind, the will is being used on the highest level possible.
     Sound like positive thinking?  Yes, it is, but it is more.  The head, heart, and gut work together.  It is not enough to mouth the words about 'good' in our lives, nor just to think the thought.  We must seek it actively, feel it, and live it.
     This is far from a 'Pollyanna' approach to life.  The negative cannot and should not be ignored.  It is to be learned from.  We need to not only acknowledge the negatives in our lives, but take responsibility for them, and see what we're getting out of them.

     Resisting or hiding from pain may provide momentary relief, but it assures a lifetime of pain.  Facing our problems may bring momentary pain, but brings a lifetime of relief.  Working through negatives and living a negative life are two very separate things.

     Because prosperity depends upon the full use of our creative imagination, we need to find ways to fully use the conscious mind.  Our task, as of this moment, is to become aware of our own negative thoughts and deliberately cancel them with our will power.  Cleaning up our act from the inside means just that - staying with our own process and watching what we are telling ourselves.
     To do this, we need to be constantly alert to the power of our thoughts, to know that there is no such thing as a casual statement.  Every time we make a statement we are reinforcing our future.  Words are energy and energy is creative.  As Emerson said, "Words are alive; cut them and they bleed." We will use this aliveness of our own words to create life and spirit for achieving our life goals.  In order to creatively use the conscious mind to reprogram the subconscious, we will need to find ways to keep the conscious mind clear.  We need to be able to have: (1) concentration with clarity, (2) peace of mind with quiet serenity, and (3) the ability to be present - now.
     We block the full use of our conscious mind when we try to experience life through 'filtered' consciousness, 'drifting' consciousness, or the 'chattering mind'.  Let's look at each in more detail.

     We often misunderstand the nature of the conscious mind, and try to succeed by being a totally rational person.  We strive to know 'enough' to win in life.  The conscious mind, however, is a gatherer.  After it has done that, its job is basically over.
     The general public values information gathered by the conscious mind.  Facts, figures, and hard data seem far more real to many than intuitive guesses, prophetic dreams, or gut reactions.  In spite of this, top leaders in every field easily recognize that many final decisions must often be made on information that goes beyond the facts.  After the figures are gathered and digested, big decisions are usually made with intuitive leaps of the imagination.  We ultimately decide by what 'feels' right.
     To stay more in touch with our intuitive feelings -the source of prospering decisions - we need to go beyond interpreting our experiences through the 'filter' of the conscious mind, by constantly using it to classify, computerize, and decode information from our environment.  We need to 'feel' our experiences - be with the trees and the flowers, instead of just naming them -trusting our gut reactions to people and problems.

     Reprogramming the subconscious requires a disciplined mind.  To fully use the conscious mind for this purpose, we will want to awaken to the effect of 'drifting'
consciousness.
     Drifting consciousness is a way we have of disappearing mentally.  When we are not 'present' mentally, we are not available to all that is going on and we are not fully prepared to change if it becomes immediately necessary.  Being here - now - is hard work, and absolutely necessary for prosperity consciousness.  We must be present to act spontaneously, ready to take our next step when it shows itself.
     So much of our time is spent in drifting consciousness, and in distraction, without even being aware of it.

Each time we are driving down the road and suddenly 'come to', not really certain where we are or where we've been, we can be sure we have been functioning on automatic.  We usually did not choose to reminisce, but instead were chasing an elusive thought that took us farther and farther away from being alive to the moment.  Each time this happens we will want to gently re-focus the mind on the ever present now.

The third consciousness trap that prevents clarity of consciousness is the 'chattering mind'.  In its usual undisciplined state, the noting has been likened to a 'drunken monkey', jumping about at random, going from one subject to another endlessly, producing little more than fatigue or, at best, escape.  This is the opposite of the kind of directed attention necessary for prosperity consciousness.  Prosperity demands concentrated thought.  This idea is summed up in:

     The incessant repetitive thoughts that obsess our minds are a drain on our creative energy Are you aware of constantly talking to yourself?  Take the next two minutes and write down all the thoughts that are going through your head.  Note how unimportant most of them are, and how you repeat yourself.
     You probably won't be able to write fast enough.  Sit in front of a clock and try not to think for 60 seconds.  Don't be discouraged by the results; you would have the powers of a very sophisticated yogi if you could stop your mind for just three minutes.  Fortunately, you don't need to be a yogi to reap the benefits of quieting your mind.
     A simple and effective way to stop the chatterer in your head is to say STOP! to yourself when you hear your reverberating circuits going around endlessly.  An even more effective, and longer lasting, technique is to meditate.  If you are a beginner, take 15 minutes each morning, close your eyes, breathe deeply, relax your body, and when thoughts come, just announce to yourself, lovingly, "Peace, be still." Meditation is a form of acknowledging your connection with the spirit of universal love, and it allows a sense of peace and love to flood your being.  The tranquility that follows stays with you, reducing stress and promoting a state of creative awareness throughout the day.

     Many artists have spoken of the creative state of being they achieve by quieting the mind and focusing attention through meditation.  Just sitting quietly gives you a chance to go inside to ask your most important questions to you inner self.  The composer Brahma, for example, wrote about his feeling of being a channel of creative energy during meditation:

I always contemplate my oneness with the creator before commencing to compose.  This is the first step.  I immediately feel vibrations that thrill my whole being. These are the spirit illuminating the soul power within and in the exalted state I see clearly what is obscure in my ordinary moods; then I feel capable of drawing inspiration from above ... straightway the ideas flow in upon me and not only do I see distinct themes in my mind's eye, but they are clothed in the right forms, harmony and orchestration.  Measure by measure the finished product is revealed to me when I am in those rare inspired moods.

Linda Rettie, age 38, sailed a 33-foot Yamaha sail boat single-handedly for 52 days across the Pacific to Japan in 1981.  She is the first American woman to sail the Pacific alone for so long a time.

Q: How would you define prosperity?

A: For me, it's peace of mind and having a sense of self-fulfillment.  This does not necessarily have anything to do with having another person in my life.  I don't think other people add to or take away from my sense of peace.  For me, knowing what I want to do, and having a direction, is my fulfillment.

Q: What is your process for achieving your goals?

A: I define my goals and lay out a plan of attack.  I have to work through my plans, take my goals apart, put them into categories, and make a time plan for each part.  This time frame is important, I need to decide the date and deadline for when I'm going to achieve each part.
     Once I have my plan organized, I let it go.  I lose consciousness of my motives, why I'm doing each particular thing.  That way I can concentrate solely on the tasks at hand.
     Also, I learned the hard way to work 'as if what I wanted was already true.  For example, on my trip to Japan I needed a sponsor to make the trip possible.  I did convince myself to organize, make plans, before I had a sponsor.  But I had a mental block of fear that I wouldn't get one.  I got depressed, which was very damaging and held me back.  I had to work very hard just before the trip to make up for it.  The mental approach to planning is of supreme importance.  I never doubted, for example, that once I left I'd get there.  That was very easy to visualize.

Q: Do you use visualizing your goals a lot?

A: Definitely.  I learned to fantasize as a young child.  I remember our family doctor telling me something that has stuck with me through the years.  He said, "People that can visualize themselves arriving before they leave home have fewer accidents.  " He meant it in broader terms and that's the way I took it.  I always visualize myself there with my goals having arrived in all things I want to achieve.

Q: People applaud you a great deal for being brave an courageous.  How do you feel about that?

A: You have to break down bravery and courage.  They aren't basic emotions.  They are just symptoms.  My single most important preparation was knowing and liking myself, because out there I was totally dependent upon myself.  In sailing to Japan, I spent two weeks with no contact, and the rest of the time with no voice contact - only morse code.
     I also learned I didn't need others to feel good.  I had come to terms with myself.  I've always been an emotional person, and in the past, I let emotions dictate my actions.  On the water, you can't.  I had to learn mind control - to fight depression.  All of my emotions continued their same mood swings as before, even though they were not being triggered by others.  It was a great revelation to me that I was doing all that stuff to myself with my thoughts.
    This mental work was important to me.  I  learned to separate what I was imagining from what was real.  I couldn't lose my grip and start feeling sorry for myself.  I needed every bit of mental preparation I had made.
     I slept no more than an hour at a time, and a total of four hours a night.  I was very much in tune with my environment and seemed to need no more sleep.  I often had the sense of joy that comes with a heightened sense of awareness of all around me.  I was literally on call 24 hours a day, but I never forgot the need for balance.  I scheduled time just for myself - without regard for the boat - to relax.  That is so important.  I knew I'd build up resentment if I didn't take time for me - to read, listen to music, watch the sunset, whatever I wanted.  I found myself obsessed with answering the question "Why?" Why was I there?  There was no 'reasonable' answer.  It was just a way that I could best express myself, and that's important to me.