Increasing Life
YOU must get rid of the last vestige of the old idea that there
is a Deity whose will it is that you should be poor, or whose
purposes may be served by keeping you in poverty.
The Intelligent Substance which is All, and in All, and which
lives in All and lives in you, is a consciously Living Substance.
Being a consciously living substance, it must have the nature and
inherent desire of every living intelligence for increase of life.
Every living thing must continually seek for the enlargement of its
life, because life, in the mere act of living, must increase itself.
A seed, dropped into the ground, springs into activity, and in
the act of living produces a hundred more seeds; life, by living,
multiplies itself. It is forever Becoming More; it must do so, if it
continues to be at all.
Intelligence is under this same necessity for continuous
increase. Every thought we think makes it necessary for us to think
another thought; consciousness is continually expanding. Every fact
we learn leads us to the learning of another fact; knowledge is
continually increasing. Every talent we cultivate brings to the mind
the desire to cultivate another talent; we are subject to the urge
of life, seeking expression, which ever drives us on to know more,
to do more, and to be more.
In order to know more, do more, and be more we must have more; we
must have things to use, for we learn, and do, and become, only by
using things. We must get rich, so that we can live more.
The desire for riches is simply the capacity for larger life
seeking fulfillment; every desire is the effort of an unexpressed
possibility to come into action. It is power seeking to manifest
which causes desire. That which makes you want more money is the
same as that which makes the plant grow; it is Life, seeking fuller
expression.
The One Living Substance must be subject to this inherent law of
all life; it is permeated with the desire to live more; that is why
it is under the necessity of creating things.
The One Substance desires to live more in you; hence it wants you
to have all the things you can use.
It is the desire of God that you should get rich. He wants you to
get rich because he can express himself better through you if you
have plenty of things to use in giving him expression. He can live
more in you if you have unlimited command of the means of life.
The universe desires you to have everything you want to have.
Nature is friendly to your plans.
Everything is naturally for you.
Make up your mind that this is true.
It is essential, however that your purpose should harmonize
with the purpose that is in All.
You must want real life, not mere pleasure of sensual
gratification. Life is the performance of function; and the
individual really lives only when he performs every function,
physical, mental, and spiritual, of which he is capable, without
excess in any.
You do not want to get rich in order to live swinishly, for the
gratification of animal desires; that is not life. But the
performance of every physical function is a part of life, and no one
lives completely who denies the impulses of the body a normal and
healthful expression.
You do not want to get rich solely to enjoy mental pleasures, to
get knowledge, to gratify ambition, to outshine others, to be
famous. All these are a legitimate part of life, but the man who
lives for the pleasures of the intellect alone will only have a
partial life, and he will never be satisfied with his lot.
You do not want to get rich solely for the good of others, to
lose yourself for the salvation of mankind, to experience the joys
of philanthropy and sacrifice. The joys of the soul are only a part
of life; and they are no better or nobler than any other part.
You want to get rich in order that you may eat, drink, and be
merry when it is time to do these things; in order that you may
surround yourself with beautiful things, see distant lands, feed
your mind, and develop your intellect; in order that you may love
men and do kind things, and be able to play a good part in helping
the world to find truth.
But remember that extreme altruism is no better and no nobler
than extreme selfishness; both are mistakes.
Get rid of the idea that God wants you to sacrifice yourself for
others, and that you can secure his favor by doing so; God requires
nothing of the kind.
What he wants is that you should make the most of yourself, for
yourself, and for others; and you can help others more by making
the most of yourself than in any other way.
You can make the most of yourself only by getting rich; so it is
right and praiseworthy that you should give your first and best
thought to the work of acquiring wealth.
Remember, however, that the desire of Substance is for all, and
its movements must be for more life to all; it cannot be made to
work for less life to any, because it is equally in all, seeking
riches and life.
Intelligent Substance will make things for you, but it will not
take things away from some one else and give them to you.
You must get rid of the thought of competition. You are to
create, not to compete for what is already created.
You do not have to take anything away from any one.
You do not have to drive sharp bargains.
You do not have to cheat, or to take advantage. You do not need
to let any man work for you for less than he earns.
You do not have to covet the property of others, or to look at it
with wishful eyes; no man has anything of which you cannot have the
like, and that without taking what he has away from him.
You are to become a creator, not a competitor; you are going to
get what you want, but in such a way that when you get it every
other man will have more than he has now.
I am aware that there are men who get a vast amount of money by
proceeding in direct opposition to the statements in the paragraph
above, and may add a word of explanation here. Men of the
plutocratic type, who become very rich, do so sometimes purely by
their extraordinary ability on the plane of competition; and
sometimes they unconsciously relate themselves to Substance in its
great purposes and movements for the general racial upbuilding
through industrial evolution. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, et al.,
have been the unconscious agents of the Supreme in the necessary
work of systematizing and organizing productive industry; and in the
end, their work will contribute immensely toward increased life for
all. Their day is nearly over; they have organized production, and
will soon be succeeded by the agents of the multitude, who will
organize the machinery of distribution.
The multi-millionaires are like the monster reptiles of the
prehistoric eras; they play a necessary part in the evolutionary
process, but the same Power which produced them will dispose of
them. And it is well to bear in mind that they have never been
really rich; a record of the private lives of most of this class
will show that they have really been the most abject and wretched of
the poor.
Riches secured on the competitive plane are never satisfactory
and permanent; they are yours today, and another's tomorrow.
Remember, if you are to become rich in a scientific and certain way,
you must rise entirely out of the competitive thought. You must
never think for a moment that the supply is limited. Just as soon as
you begin to think that all the money is being "cornered" and
controlled by bankers and others, and that you must exert yourself
to get laws passed to stop this process, and so on; in that moment
you drop into the competitive mind, and your power to cause creation
is gone for the time being; and what is worse, you will probably
arrest the creative movements you have already instituted.
KNOW that there are countless millions of dollars' worth of gold
in the mountains of the earth, not yet brought to light; and know
that if there were not, more would be created from Thinking
Substance to supply your needs.
KNOW that the money you need will come, even if it is necessary
for a thousand men to be led to the discovery of new gold mines
to-morrow.
Never look at the visible supply; look always at the limitless
riches in Formless Substance, and KNOW that they are coming to you
as fast as you can receive and use them. Nobody, by cornering
the visible supply, can prevent you from getting what is yours.
So never allow yourself to think for an instant that all the best
building spots will be taken before you get ready to build your
house, unless you hurry. Never worry about the trusts and combines,
and get anxious for fear they will soon come to own the whole earth.
Never get afraid that you will lose what you want because some other
person "beats you to it." That cannot possibly happen; you are not
seeking any thing that is possessed by anybody else; you are causing
what you want to be created from formless Substance, and the supply
is without limits. Stick to the formulated statement:
There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and
which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the
interspaces of the universe.
A thought, in this substance, produces the thing that is
imaged by the thought.
Man can form things in his thought, and, by impressing his
thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing he thinks about
to be created. |