Series 1 - Lesson 3 - Annotation 19
How would you build a consciousness of prosperity?
19. One builds a consciousness of prosperity in the same orderly manner in which anything is built, starting with an idea as the foundation. First, there must be a desire to build such a consciousness. There must be recognition of God as the one source of supply, and the individual's right, as son and heir of God, to that supply. Starting with this premise, the individual then turns his consciousness (mind and heart) Godward in prayer in order to lay hold of the idea of abundance that will act as his pattern or "blue-print" for building a prosperity consciousness. Through meditation upon the idea of supply, one learns what he needs to deny from consciousness, and what he needs to affirm. Then he contemplates the idea, and allows it to work in his imagination to form a mental image or picture. When he enters into that deeper phase of prayer which we term the Silence he has opened his consciousness so that the "letter" may be filled with the "spirit (that) giveth life" (II Cor. 3:6).
Charles Fillmore covers the process that goes on in the mind of man in the following words:
"It is well said that the mind is the crucible in which the ideal is transmuted into the real. This process of transformation is the spiritual chemistry we must learn before we are ready to work intelligently in the great laboratory of the Father's substance. There is no lack of material there to form what we will and we can draw upon it as a resource according to our purpose. Wealth of consciousness will express itself in wealth of manifestation" (Charles Fillmore Prosperity 56).
When man realizes that all things are of and from God, and that man is a steward of them, he is no longer selfish and grasping. He learns the truth of the Biblical statement "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof" (Psalms 24:1, A.V.).
Man has an innate desire to know God as the source of his good. On coins of the United States of America this basic prosperity law is stamped: "In God we trust." Consciously or unconsciously man is seeking to build or establish this truth in his mind and heart. So, strictly speaking, what we term the building of a "prosperity consciousness" in spiritual study is not merely a mental acceptance of our right to manifest good. It is the consciousness of God as the source of all that man and the rest of creation need in order to fulfill each individual purpose of existence. In The Story of Unity, page 118, this is stated very simply in this way: "The Fillmores ... thought that if they could maintain themselves in a prosperity consciousness, an awareness of God as the source of their supply, prosperity could not fail to be theirs" (The Household of Faith 118).
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Preceding Entry: When you give to another or do something for him, why should you trust divine law for recompense rather than demand compensation from him?
Following Entry: What is the "church of Christ"? What do we mean by "universal church" and "particular or individual church"?
