Chapter 6
WEALTH OF
MIND EXPRESSES ITSELF IN
RICHES
Charles Fillmore
Prosperity
PROSPERITY, according to
Webster, is an advance or gain in
anything good or desirable, successful
progress toward, or attainment of a
desired object. Prosperity does not
mean the same thing to any two persons.
To the wage earner an increase of a few
dollars in the weekly income may seem
like wonderful prosperity, for it means
an increase in the comfort and welfare
of his family. The man who engages in
vast enterprises reckons prosperity in
larger terms, and does not consider
himself prosperous unless things are
coming to him in a big way. Between
these extremes are many ideas of
prosperity, which shows quite plainly
that prosperity is not in the
possession of things but in the
recognition of supply and in the
knowledge of free and open access to an
inexhaustible storehouse of all that is
good or desirable.
In the great Mind of God
there is no thought of lack, and such a
thought has no rightful place in your
mind. It is your birthright to be
prosperous, regardless of who you are
or where you may be.
Jesus said to all men,
"Seek ye first his kingdom, and his
righteousness; and all these things
shall be added unto you." This does not
mean that if you belong to a certain
church you will be prospered, for
"righteousness" is not conforming to
some particular religious belief but to
the law of right thinking, regardless
of creed, dogma, or religious form. Get
into the prosperity thought and you
will demonstrate prosperity. Cultivate
the habit of thinking about abundance
everywhere present, not only in the
forms of imagination but in forms
without. Jesus did not make a
separation between the two as though
they were at enmity. He said, "Render
therefore unto Caesar the things that
are Caesar's; and unto God the things
that are God's." Put things in their
right relation, the spiritual first and
the material following, each where it
belongs, and render to each its
own.
Realize first of all
that prosperity is not wholly a matter
of capital or environment but a
condition brought about by certain
ideas that have been allowed to rule in
the consciousness. When these ideas are
changed the conditions are changed in
spite of environment and all
appearances, which must also change to
conform to the new ideas. People who
come into riches suddenly without
building up a consciousness of
prosperity soon part from their money.
Those who are born and bred to riches
usually have plenty all their life even
though they never make the effort to
earn a dollar for themselves. This is
because the ideas of plenty are so
interwoven into their thought
atmosphere that they are a very part of
themselves. They have the prosperity
consciousness, in which there is no
idea of any condition under which the
necessities of life could be
lacking.
We are sometimes asked
whether we advocate the accumulation of
riches. No. The accumulation of riches,
as has been explained, is futile unless
it is the outgrowth of a rich
consciousness. We advocate the
accumulation rather of rich ideas,
ideas that are useful, constructive,
and of service to the well-being of all
mankind. The outer manifestation of
riches may follow or it may not, but
the supply for every need will be
forthcoming because the man of rich
ideas has confidence in an
all-providing power that never fails.
He may not have an extra dollar, but
his ideas have merit and he has
confidence, a combination that cannot
fail to attract the money to carry him
forward. This is true riches, not an
accumulation of money, but access to an
inexhaustible resource that can be
drawn on at any time to meet any
righteous demand. When a person has
this rich consciousness there is no
necessity for laying up gold or
accumulating stocks and bonds or other
property to ensure future supply. Such
a one may be most generous with his
wealth without fear of depletion,
because his rich ideas will keep him in
constant touch with abundance. Those
who have the thought of accumulating
material wealth, a thought that is
dominant in the world today, are
unbalanced. They have a fear of the
loss of riches that makes their tenure
insecure. Their prosperity is based on
a wrong idea of the source of riches
and eventually means disaster. The sin
of riches is not in the possession but
in the love of money, a material
selfishness that leads to soul
starvation.
It is not a crime to be
rich nor a virtue to be poor, as
certain reformers would have us think.
The sin lies in hoarding wealth and
keeping it from circulating freely to
all who need it. Those who put wealth
into useful work that contributes to
the welfare of the masses are the
salvation of the country. Fortunately,
there are many in this country who have
the prosperity consciousness. If we
were all in a poverty consciousness,
famines would be as common here as they
are in India or China. Millions in
those lands are held in the perpetual
thought of poverty and they suffer want
in all its forms from the cradle to the
grave. The burden of the poverty
thought reacts on the earth so that
year after year it withholds its
products and many people
starve.
Universal Mind controls
all nature and is in possession of all
its products. "The earth is the Lord's,
and the fullness thereof" is a great
Truth. Puny, personal man uses all his
craft to get control of the products of
nature but is always defeated in the
end. Only the universal man of Spirit
is in indisputed possession, and to him
the Father says, "All that is mine is
thine." Jesus did not have title to a
foot of land and evidently had no
money, for the apostles carried
whatever funds the company
had.
He did not even burden
Himself with a tub, as did Diogenes,
and "had not where to lay his head."
Yet He was always provided with
entertainment of the best. He took it
for granted that whatever He needed was
His. The fish carried His pocketbook,
and the invisible ethers furnished the
sideboard from which He handed out food
for thousands. He was rich in every way
for He had the prosperity consciousness
and proved that the earth with all its
fullness does belong to the Lord, whose
righteous sons are heirs to and in
possession of all things.
The anxious thought must
be eliminated and the perfect abandon
of the child of nature assumed, and
when to this attitude you add the
realization of unlimited resources, you
have fulfilled the divine law of
prosperity.
The imagination is a
wonderful creative power. It builds all
things out of the one substance. When
you associate it with faith, you make
things just as real as those that God
makes, for man is a co-creator with
God. Whatever you form in the mind and
have faith in will become substantial.
Then you should be on guard as regards
what you put your faith in. If it is
material forms, shadows that cease to
be as soon as your supporting thought
is withdrawn from them, you are
building temporary substance that will
pass away and leave you nothing. Put
your faith in the real or, as Jesus
told His disciples, "have faith in
God."
The real search of all
people is for God. They may think they
are looking for other things, but they
must eventually admit that it is God
they seek. Having once felt His
presence within them, they are keenly
conscious that only God can satisfy.
The place where we meet God should be
made so sure and so pure that we can
never mistake His voice or be hidden
from His face. This place we know as
the mind, the inmost recess of the
soul, the kingdom of the heavens within
us.
It is not sufficient
however to sit down and hold thoughts
of abundance without further effort.
That is limiting the law to thought
alone, and we want it to be fulfilled
in manifestation as well. Cultivating
ideas of abundance is the first step in
the process. The ideas that come must
be used. Be alert in doing whatever
comes to you to do, cheerful and
competent in the doing, sure of the
results, for it is the second step in
the fulfilling of the law.
You can do anything with
the thoughts of your mind. They are
yours and under your control. You can
direct them, coerce them, hush them, or
crush them. You can dissolve one
thought and put another in its stead.
There is no other place in the universe
where you are the absolute master. The
dominion given you as your divine right
is over your own thoughts only. When
you fully apprehend this and begin to
exercise your God-given dominion, you
begin to find the way to God, the only
door to God, the door of mind and
thought.
If you are fearful that
you will not be provided with the
necessities of life for tomorrow, next
week, or next year, or for your old
age, or that your children will be left
in want, deny the thought. Do not allow
yourself for a moment to think of
something that must be outside the
realm of all-careful, all-providing
good. You know even from your outer
experience that the universe is
self-sustaining and that its
equilibrium is established by law. The
same law that sustains all sustains you
as a part. Claim your identity under
that law, your oneness with the all,
and rest in the everlasting arms of
Cause, which knows nothing of lack. If
you are in a condition of poverty, this
attitude of mind will attract to you
opportunities to better your condition.
Insulate your mind from the destructive
thoughts of all those who labor under
the belief in hard times. If your
associates talk about the financial
stringency, affirm all the more
persistently your dependence on the
abundance of God.
By doing this you place
yourself under a divine law of demand
and supply that is never influenced by
the fluctuations of the market or the
opinions of men. Every time you send
out a thought of wholehearted faith in
the I AM part of yourself, you set in
motion a chain of causes that must
bring the results you seek. Ask
whatsoever you will in the name of the
Christ, the I AM, the divine within,
and your demands will be fulfilled;
both heaven and earth will hasten to do
your bidding. But when you have asked
for something, be on the alert to
receive it when it comes. People
complain that their prayers are not
answered when, if we knew the truth,
they are not awake to receive the
answer when it comes.
If you ask for money, do
not look for an angel from the skies to
bring it on a golden platter, but keep
your eyes open for some fresh
opportunity to make money, an
opportunity that will come as sure as
you live.
These are some tangible
steps along the way to the larger
manifestation you desire. No one is
ever given the keys to the Father's
storehouse of wealth until he has
proved his faith and his reliability.
Then he may go in and pass out the
goods freely. If the men of the world,
with their selfish ideas of "mine and
thine," were given the power, without a
thorough mental cleansing, of instantly
producing whatever they desire, they
would undoubtedly practice still
greater oppressions on their fellows,
and existing conditions would not be
improved.
A stonecutter sees a
block of marble as so many hours work,
while Michelangelo sees it as an angel
that it is his privilege to bring
forth. This is the difference between
those who see the material world as so
much matter and those who look on it
with the eyes of mind and the
imagination that works toward
perfection. One who paints a picture or
makes a piece of sculpture first sees
it in his mind. He first imagines or
images it. If he wants a strong picture
he makes force one of the elements of
his image. If he wants beauty and
character, he puts love into it. He may
not see the perfect picture until all
these elements are combined, then it
requires but little effort to transfer
it from his mind to the canvas or to
the marble.
On the sixth day of
creation, we are told, God "imaged" His
man, made him in His image and
likeness. This does not mean that God
looks like man, a personal being with
manlike form. We make a thing in our
own image, the image we have in mind
for the thing, and our creation does
not resemble us in any way. God is
without form, for He is Spirit. God is
an idea that man has tried to objectify
in various forms. He is the universal
substance, the life that animates the
substance, and the love that binds it
together. Man just naturally gives some
form to every idea he has, even the
idea of God, for the formative faculty
of the mind is always at work whether
we are awake or asleep. We get material
for forming mental pictures from
without and from within.
This imaging or
formative power of the mind could not
make anything unless it had the
substance out of which to form it. One
could not make a loaf of bread without
the flour and other ingredients. Yet
with all the ingredients at hand one
could not make a loaf unless one had
the power of imaging the loaf in one's
mind. This seems simple, but the fact
is that the power to form the loaf is
less common than the available material
for the loaf. Flour and water are
abundant, but only certain people can
use them in the right way to form a
palatable loaf of bread. So with this
subject of prosperity. Substance is
everywhere, filling all the universe.
There is no lack. If we have not been
successful in forming it into the
things we have needed and wished for,
it is not because of lack of substance
but of lack of understanding how to use
our imaging power.
The world goes through
periods of seeming lack because the
people have refused to build their
prosperity on the inner, omnipresent,
enduring substance, and on the contrary
have tried to base it on the substance
that they see in the outer. This outer
substance, formed by the imaging power
of men in past ages, seems to be
limited, and men struggle for it,
forgetting their own divine power to
form their own substance from the
limitless supply within. The lesson for
all of us should be to build our
prosperity on the inner
substance.
Those who do demonstrate
prosperity through the law of men have
nothing permanent. All their
possessions may be swept away in a
moment. They have not built on the
orderly law of God, and without the
rich thoughts of God's bounteousness no
one can have an enduring consciousness
of supply.
No disease, poverty, or
any other negative condition can enter
into our domain unless we invite it.
Nor can it remain with us unless we
entertain it. Conscious power over all
such conditions is one of our greatest
delights and a part of our divine
inheritance, but we must learn the law
and apply the power in the right
way.
Men have a consciousness
of lack because they let Satan, the
serpent of sense, tempt them. The
Garden of Eden is within us here and
now, and the subtle temptation to eat
of the tree of sensation is also still
with us. We have been given dominion
over the animal forces of the body, the
"beasts of the field," and must tame
them, making them servants instead of
masters of the body. Instead of feeding
them we must make them feed us. When we
overcome the animals within, it will be
easy to train them in the without. This
truth of overcoming is taught all
through the Scriptures, and we can
demonstrate it in our life, for God has
endowed us with the power to overcome.
We must lay hold of that inherent power
and begin to use it
constructively.
The whole human family
seems to be sensation mad. All our
economic and social troubles can be
traced right back to the selfishness of
the sense man. We can never overcome
these conditions in the outer until we
overcome their causes in the inner soul
of ourselves. There is sure to be
repetition of war and peace, plenty and
famine, good times and depressions
until we take the control of mind
substance away from the sense man and
give it to the spiritual man. We know
that there is a spiritual man and we
look forward in some ideal way to his
coming, but he will never come until we
bring him. We hope and pray for the
coming of better things; but as Mark
Twain said about the weather, "no one
does anything about it." We can do
something about the matter of
self-control and each of us must if we
are ever to improve our condition
physically and financially as well as
morally and spiritually.
We must lift up this
serpent of sense, as Moses lifted up
the serpent in the wilderness, and
control it in the name of
Christ.
Eliminate all negative
thoughts that come into your mind. Yet
do not spend all your time in denials
but give much of it to the clear
realization of the everywhere present
and waiting substance and life. Some of
us have in a measure inherited "hard
times" by entertaining the race thought
so prevalent around us. Do not allow
yourself to do this. Remember your
identity, that you are a son of God and
that your inheritance is from Him. You
are the heir to all that the Father
has. Let the I AM save you from every
negative thought. The arrows that fly
by day and the pestilence that
threatens are these negative race
thoughts in the mental atmosphere. The
I AM consciousness, your Saviour, will
lead you out of the desert of negation
and into the Promised Land of plenty
that flows with milk and
honey.
Deny that you can lose
anything. Let go of negative thoughts
of financial loss or any other kind of
loss and realize that nothing is ever
lost in all the universe. There are
opportunities everywhere, just as there
have always been, to produce all that
you need financially, or otherwise. God
wants you to be a producer of new
ideas. New ideas come to you from
within. Do not think for a moment that
you are limited to the ideas that come
from without. Many of those ideas are
outgrown anyway and have outlived their
usefulness. That is why we go through
periods of change; so that old outworn
ideas can be discarded and replaced
with new and better ones. There have
been more inventions since the
beginning of the so-called depression
than in any previous similar period of
American history. This shows that new
ideas are within man, just waiting to
be called out and put into expression.
We can find new ways of living and new
methods of work; we are not confined to
the ways and methods of the past. When
we commune with the Spirit within and
ask for new ideas, they are always
forthcoming. When these ideas from
within us are recognized, they go to
work and come to the surface. Then all
the thoughts we have ever had, as well
as the thoughts of other people, are
added to them and new things are
quickly produced. Let us quit slavishly
depending on someone else for
everything and become producers, for
only in that direction lies happiness
and success. Let us begin to
concentrate on this inner man, this
powerful man who produces things, who
gets his ideas from a
higher-dimensional realm, who brings
ideas from a new territory, the land of
Canaan.
What kind of character
are you giving to this inner substance
by your thoughts? Change your thought
and increase your substance in the
mind, as Elisha increased the oil for
the widow. Get larger receptacles and
plenty of them. Even a very small idea
of substance may be added to and
increased. The widow had a very small
amount of oil, but as the prophet
blessed it it increased until it filled
every vessel she could borrow from the
neighbors. We should form the habit of
blessing everything that we have. It
may seem foolish to some persons that
we bless our nickels, dimes, and
dollars, but we know that we are
setting the law of increase into
operation. All substance is one and
connected, whether in the visible or
the invisible. The mind likes something
that is already formed and tangible for
a suggestion to take hold of. With this
image the mind sets to work to draw
like substance from the invisible realm
and thus increase what we have in hand.
Jesus used the small quantity of loaves
and fishes to produce a great quantity
of--loaves and fishes. Elisha used a
small amount of oil to produce a great
amount of--oil. So when we bless our
money or other goods, we are complying
with a divine law of increase that has
been demonstrated many
times.
Another step in the
demonstration of prosperity is the
preparation of the consciousness to
receive the increase. If we pray for
rain, we should be sure that we have
our umbrellas with us. You read in the
3d chapter of II Kings how Elisha
caused the water to come from the
invisible and fill trenches in the
desert. But first the trenches had to
be dug in the dry ground. That required
faith, but the kings had it, and they
dug trenches all over a large valley,
just as Elisha had commanded. It was
through the understanding of Elisha,
who knew the truth about the invisible
substance, that this seeming miracle
was accomplished. Yet the trenches had
to be prepared, and you must prepare
your consciousness for the inflow of
the universal substance.
It obeys the law of
nature, just as does water or any other
visible thing, and flows into the place
prepared for it. It fills everything
you hold in your mind, whether vessels,
trenches, or your purse.
It is not advisable to
hold for too specific a demand. You
might visualize a hundred dollars and
get it when a thousand was coming your
way. Do not limit the substance, to
what you think you need or want; rather
broaden your consciousness and give
infinite Mind freedom to work, and
every good and needful thing will be
provided you. Make your statements
broad and comprehensive so that your
mind may expand to the Infinite rather
than trying to cram the Infinite into
your mind.
Statements To Broaden
The Mind And Fill It With The Richness
Of Substance
Infinite wisdom guides
me, divine love prospers me, and I am
successful in everything I
undertake.
In quietness and
confidence I affirm the drawing power
of divine love as my magnet of
constantly increasing
supply.
I have unbounded faith
in the omnipresent substance increasing
and multiplying at my word of plenty,
plenty, plenty.
Father, I thank Thee for
unlimited increase in mind, money, and
affairs.
