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.