Successful Living Through Self-Awareness
By Frank and Martha Giudici
Lesson Four
Prosperity — Part One: Cleansing
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23 Prosperity begins with cleansing
The next part of our lesson concerns successful living through self-awareness in the area of prosperity. We’re going to work with the ideas of prosperity. First of all, we have to be aware that we need to cleanse our consciousness. We have to begin to work with denials. Charles Fillmore was a great one. He never let go of the denials. He said that had we build our consciousness on the perfect pattern, then there would be no need for denials, but since it’s very obvious that we have not built our consciousness on the perfect pattern, then we need to use denials. Until we are so perfect that we can all demonstrate that body of light here and now, we will need to let go. We will need to let go.
The first thing that we have to do is take a look in consciousness at those present conditions, which may be blocking the flow, which may be blocking the flow of Spirit.
24 Observe and write our physical outpicturing
This block in consciousness concerns first a physical. Now, as I’ve said, we can always begin by looking out there. Many of you are familiar with Emmet Fox’s work, The Mental Equivalent. It’s a fine little book, and what he talks about is this idea that if we want to have something in our outer world, we must have the mental equivalent for it. But we also discover that we have already established the mental equivalent of what we are manifesting in our world.
This very first area in blocks in consciousness concerns those things in the physical, which we may need to take a look at and find which we need to change. So the very first place that we can look is we can look around us. Let’s start in our homes. This is where we’re going to start. We’re going to start in our homes. Just for a few moments in your mind’s eye, we’re going to be moving each one of us into our own home. We’re going to take a look at it. We’re going to take a look at the conditions which exist around us, and it’s the apartment that we may live in, the house we may live in, the trailer we may live in, whatever it may be that we have as a dwelling place. We’re going to take a look now and say, “Okay, what do I ... what am I out-picturing in my home?”
Let’s first of all go to the closets, and let’s go to the drawers. Let’s go to the basement and let’s go to the attic if you have one. For there is a good indication of consciousness.
(Frank) A few were responding right now ...
Yes, people are taking a real good look at this, right. Okay. This is a very good way to find out if we have a cluttered consciousness. Unless your drawers in your house are very orderly, it may be very indicative of some of the states of consciousness that you need to work with. The very first action that you can do is to get up and start cleaning out those drawers. Let’s take a look at them first. Let’s take a look at the drawers, the closets and things. These are indicative of whether you are really in the habit of letting go, of letting go. If you have a cluttered closet full of things which have been there for a very long time, maybe it’s a dress you’re holding on to which you really like. Maybe it’s something that really is a beautiful piece of material, but it doesn’t fit you anymore, and maybe one of these days it’s going to fit again.
Maybe you have taken all of these things up to the attic and you have stored them away, because someday they are going to be very good. Perhaps down in the basement you have all these things which are just too good to let go of but there they are, occupying space in your house or perhaps if you live in an apartment it’s down in some storage locker, or perhaps you’re storing them with a friend. You have all of these nice neat little boxes full of things which you haven’t looked at in years, but they’re very important.
They’re much like the mental attitudes which we hold also. We have this idea of what we’re seeing around us, the closets. Also, we can look at the furniture. Let’s take a look in our mind’s eye at the furniture in our home, okay? What does it look like? Is it the kind that you really desire? Is it something that was only to meet the need at the particular time? Is it something that you may want to exchange for something better? Does the furniture really reflect you or is it “early American put together”? A lot of us had that early American accumulated consciousness, where we are accumulating those things and they just become eventually kind of a hodgepodge of things in our home, and maybe they’re not exactly what we want.
We can also take a look at our wardrobe. Open it up, take a look in that closet and say, “Okay, now is that wardrobe really what I want to reflect as me? Does it really out-picture the real me? Is it what I want? Is it exactly the way I intend to function as an individual?” Take a look at your wardrobe. Does it reflect the real you? Does it reflect where you are right now but perhaps not where you want to be in consciousness?” So what we want to do is become aware of our wardrobe.
Then, let’s take a look at our finances. This is also an outer manifestation of our thinking processes. Our finances and the work that we do are all reflective of the way that we think. The pattern of our thoughts that are out-picturing in our life. Another area that we want to consider, that we may have blocks in consciousness regarding, is in our automobile, for our automobile does reflect the condition, our state of our mind. We often refer to this as our freedom symbol. It is symbolic of the way we see ourselves. Our automobile is a direct out-picturing. If you’ve got a shiny, sleek automobile, or are you still driving around in something that may be a little battered and beat up? Maybe that’s the way you feel about yourself right now, a little battered and a little beat up.
So what I’m going to ask you to do is to take your yellow card, and on those first few lines under P, there are three lines there. I want you to jot down just a few ideas that out-picture right now where you are. First of all, write a condition of your home. Are the closets empty and neat and orderly? Is it in need of painting? Is it getting a little cluttered? Are the attics nice and empty or are they full? Is the basement full? Just write down exactly ... right now, be honest with yourself because you’re not going to change anything. Again, if you’re not honest with yourself right now, what does my house look like, exactly? What does it look like? What kind of furniture is in there? What does this house look like, right now? We’re going to do something about it in a few minutes.
Then we’re going to go about your car, what kind of a car you had, write a couple of words that describe your car, your wardrobe, what your financial condition is right now. Is it adequate? Is it abundant? Is it limited right at the moment? Just write a word. You don’t have to write a book, just jot down a few lines. You know what they mean. Also write down the job you’re doing, the work. If you’re not working, how do you occupy your time? If you’re a housewife, if you are a retired person, write that down. If that’s what you are, write it down right now.
[inaudible question] We’ve only given you three lines. Three lines. You have to write really small. Write really small in those first three lines. We don’t want you to write a book. You have to learn to be succinct. You have to learn to be succinct. Just write key words. Bad, good, indifferent, those ideas. Okay?
25 Observe and write our mental blocks
Now, you can turn to the next column, which is M, and you have three lines there, and you think about some of those mental concepts that we may be holding about prosperity.
There are many mental concepts which we hold about prosperity which may be blocking the flow. Many of us have gotten what we’ve gotten what we call messages from our environment, messages from our parents, messages from authority figures in our life. So we have many messages which we grow up with. One of the most famous of these of course is the eight hours a day for eight hours pay. That that’s all you deserve. That you have to really work hard. You have to work eight hours a day in order to get anywhere in life. That can really limit you.
Then there’s another idea that we may have, and that is “God helps those who helps themselves.” That may come from our religious background. The only problem with that is that we’re not really sure when we should stop doing things and letting God help us, because we just have to keep on helping. We just have to keep on doing. It’s the idea of letting go and letting God, but you don’t know exactly when you’re supposed to let go. You don’t ever really know if you’ve ever done enough, so it may be a hindrance to you.
A lot of us grew up with a lot of religious indoctrination, and that religious indoctrination told us that perhaps money was the root of all evil, or we listened to the story of Jesus and the rich young ruler, and the thinking was that we should give up everything, that we shouldn’t have anything. That if you have money or if you have abundance, or if you’re living very comfortably, that that might be a sin, that you might really be sinful if you have a lot of good in your life. So therefore, deep down within us we may have some thinking processes. If you recognize any of these as we’re going along, you might want to jot them down under the mental attitudes that we’re going to be working on.
Then you might find out that society has a lot of things to say. Society has a lot of things. They’ll say it’s hard times. There isn’t a balance of economy. Unemployment levels are higher than ever. Money is getting scarce. We are in a state of depression. We’re in a recession. We’re in a time of things getting so expensive that they’re out of sight. We’re listening and we’re taking in these messages, and we’re responding to them.
All of these messages are messages which are coming to us from the outer. They’ve either come to us from the past or they are still coming to us from the future. Each and every one of us has a lot of mental concepts concerning prosperity. I want you to jot down now under the M section some of those “limited” concepts, which you recognize. That maybe poverty is a virtue, or perhaps that you don’t deserve it, but we’ll get into that in a minute because that’s really emotional. This idea of the messages that you got from your parents concerning prosperity. Do you have to work hard for money? Is that a concept you have? Do you have to work eight hours a day? That may be a concept that you have about money. What do you think about money? There are lots of them around.
26 Observe and write our emotional state
Then in the final column, there is that emotional state. There is that emotional state which rules our feeling nature. We may feel about money and about prosperity that there isn’t going to be enough. That there isn’t going to be enough. So if I don’t hold on to it, then I may never get another one. That’s kind of an indoctrination we get as children. We can all remember our parents telling us, “You have to take care of that. That’s the only one you’re going to get. You’re not going to get another. You better hold on that. Well, you better not spend all your money, you better hold on to a few pennies in case of a rainy day. In case of a rainy day, you must put aside for the future now because you may not have it when the time comes.” This whole idea of being fearful about prosperity, fearful.
Now I’m not talking about average savings and the idea of the good use of your money. Good stewardship is another thing we’ll talk about that in our positive, but right now, we’re trying to get in touch with those areas of our thinking where we may have some fear thoughts about our financial condition.
Also, we may have a feeling that we don’t deserve. That we don’t deserve to be prosperous. We may be feeling that we have done things so wrong and that only the very good prosper and somehow or another we have managed to foul up somewhere along in life so therefore down deep inside of us there may be a feeling that we really don’t deserve. That we really don’t deserve to be prosperous. That we really haven’t got the right to be a prosperous child of God.
Also, there are two areas too that we may feel guilty if we have something and other people don’t. We may be feeling very guilty if we have some good things and other people may not have as much as we do. We may want to take a look at those areas of guilt, but there are other things that we may be feeling guilty about in life which can also effectively block the flow of Spirit. So if there are those areas of your emotional nature where you recognize and it may just flash into your mind and you’ll find that as you meditate, some of these things do come into your mind, where you may be feeling guilty about something in the past and that very thought of guilt can block the flow of your prosperity.
Also, you may find that you feel that you are not forgiven for something that you may have done. You may feel unforgiven about something. So if there’s anything that you feel unforgiven about in your life, you might just jot down one or two key letters or words. Just say past or robbed a bank or whatever. I don’t think we have any bank robbers in our midst but if you do, okay.
(Frank) If you did, put it down and your feelings about it.
Yeah, right. Okay. That you feel that you lack forgiveness about this or perhaps there’s someone in your life who did something that really offended you and really hurt you and then we won’t work on a lot of things. We’ll just work on a couple of things today. You can work on these to your heart’s content later on because Frank is going to give you some things to do and he’ll be having you write more.
So there are these ideas of the lack of forgiveness which will block the flow. So if you are holding on to lack of forgiveness about yourself or forgiveness of another, these will very effectively block the flow of Spirit. So write them down, anything that comes to your mind.
27 How to get rid of these blocks
Now we’re not writing them down so that we can hold on to them. We’re writing them down so that we can do something about them.
There’s a definite difference between writing down for the purpose of releasing and writing down to spin in it, because for goodness sake you’re spinning in it now. As long as you are still holding it in consciousness, you’re spinning in it. Once you write it down, we’re writing now to get rid of it. We don’t want it anymore. We don’t want these states of consciousness. So Frank is going to give you some things to do how to handle and get rid of these states of consciousness.
As Martha has said, when we’re identifying these blocks in consciousness and writing them down on just the three lines that we’ve given you there and they were given to you for a purpose. Remember that what you want to do is just identify the major areas. You all heard the saying that goes something like this. If you work on the big ones, then all the little ones seem to take care of themselves. Thank God folks that it is that way.
If we had to work in great depth on everything in our consciousness, well it would be an endless process. I think that we can all find tremendous healing taking place if we’ll simply work on the major areas, that old same idea. Work on the big ones and the little ones will take care of themselves. So in giving you just three lines, we’re trying to work with that idea because you don’t have much room to write anything else. You just identify those major areas.
In the book of James in the New Testament it says that "faith without works is dead." Of course this carries the idea that in everything that we pray about we finally have to do something about. There is usually some physical action that we have to follow up on. This is what we’re going to talk about here in just a few moments. We have identified some blocks in consciousness that relate to these three areas of being; the physical area, the mental area or intellectual area and also the emotional area.
Now, what can we do about these areas? In just a few moments we’re going to do something that’s extremely important and that is meditation because that’s really basically the only way that you finally make a valid change and that is by changing your consciousness through meditation. While you’re changing your consciousness through meditation, you can cooperate with that inner change by making some outer changes as well. These outer changes have to do with physical actions. Let’s talk about the physical area first.
28 Physical actions for physical blocks
When you’re working with prosperity, it really can be a fun thing. As teachers, Martha and I feel that prosperity is one of the most fun filled courses to teach. Why? Because everybody can really get into it, really can identify with the need for greater prosperity and then everyone seems to find that when we give them something to do, something in the outer that they go home and find all these dramatic demonstrations taking place.
Well, let’s relate this first of all to the physical area of life. What is it that we can do? We were talking about cluttered closets and cluttered and drawers and that type of thing. One of the first things that we can do was go home and begin to clean out the cluttered attic, the drawer, the closet, whatever the case might be. If we have some furniture that we’ve been hanging on to for well maybe not the best of reasons, we might go out and start to make preparations to release that furniture, to actually let it go. Now common sense and wisdom of course does rule here, but we can begin to take some appropriate outer action in the way of letting go of or getting rid of some of these things that we just identified in the physical area.
Let me give you a couple of beautiful illustrations along this line. When Martha and I were serving at one particular ministry in the field, we decided to co-teach a prosperity class at 9:30 or 9:00 on Sunday mornings before the 11:00 service. I think it turned out to be one of the greatest classes that we ever taught. It was just as I said earlier a fun filled class. We came to this part about instructing people to go home and begin to clean out the closets and clean out the attic and that sort of thing.
Then when they came back for the class the following week, we asked the people, those that wanted to, to share in the demonstrations they had. You should have heard the demonstrations. Folks that never fails. People began finding $20 bills that they had tucked away in the back of the drawer or between the pages of a book and so forth, all kinds of—money started showing up all over the place. You see? And why? Because they began to work with this idea of cleaning out physically and things began to appear.
I recall one person who went home and began to clean out I think it was the drawers and the desk or bureau, whatever it was, and she had been married just a short time before. You know how it is when people get married, they also get a lot of wedding gifts. Some wedding gifts that she and her husband had received were gift certificates. She’d forgotten all about them because she tucked these gift certificates away in the back of a drawer somewhere and probably might have forgotten about them for Lord knows how long, but because she went through this exercise of cleaning out the drawers, suddenly she came upon all those gift certificates and it was a demonstration.
In other words, she already had her good but wasn’t consciously aware of it. Can’t we identify with that all the way in truth? Our good is here for us right now but we all don’t make that conscious identification with it. Then suddenly she found all these gift certificates and my what a bonanza.
In that same class, let me tell you about this demonstration. There was another lady and this lady needed to make some prosperity demonstrations. She went home and began cleaning things out. I suppose maybe at first she was a bit reluctant as some people are to say, “Well this seems kind of silly. I don’t know if it’s really going to work or not.” Anyway, she went home and she did begin to clean things out. She saw some material to make dresses I guess and drapes and those sorts of things. She had some material there that had been given to her years before by some friends. So she decided to throw this material out. It had been laying there for maybe several years. It was quite some time.
As she began to throw this material out, suddenly she got between some of the layers and she noticed that there was money there, cash. I don’t remember the exact amount but tucked away in between layers of this material was a large sum of money that came to several thousand dollars. It seems to me it was $3000 or $4000 or $5000. I don’t know if Martha can recall or not. A tremendous sum of money and it just shocked her. She was ready to throw all this material away. She never used it, but I guess at that moment divine guidance leading her into looking between some layers of the material helped her to discover this large sum of money.
So she came in and told us about it and was quite quiet about it, which I think was the appropriate thing to do. So she began to check back. We talked to her about this, both Martha and I, and she began to check back to see if there were any other so called rightful owners to this money. Would you believe that the people that had given her that money had passed on, both the people responsible for this and that she traced it back, and she was a very honest person, there was absolutely no connection that she can make between this money and other people, maybe relatives or whatever the case might be of these people that had given her the money. In other words, this material was a free gift to her and so was that money.
So you see what can happen when you really start to work with God? Faith without works is dead. When you start to put some action into your prayer work, all kinds of things can happen.
So this is what we want to do then in the physical area. When you go home, let yourself respond to whatever physical area of your life needs to be responded to at this moment and begin to clean things out, begin to let things go. Suddenly I think of another illustration, and this has to do with a young gentleman who responded to the same idea of going home and cleaning things out. This was not in the same prosperity class but in another class. He picked up on this idea of the furniture. He felt that he had furniture that he wasn’t too happy with and he really would like to have had something better.
So he decided to go home and I’m not recommending this all the way because he acted rather emotionally I guess. He said, “I’m tired of looking at all this stuff.” So he just got rid of all his furniture and lived in some bare room for a short time. He was single, was able to handle it and a young fellow, and he got rid of all his furniture. I didn’t know he was going to do this. He told us about it several days later. In a short period of time, you know what happened? New furniture began to appear. I thinks someone gave him a couple of pieces and then he was able to purchase some more furniture.
(Martha) No, that was the night he was invited to dinner by his father and mother. At that dinner they presented him with a check that he had from his grandfather’s estate that he did not know was coming.
There you are.
It was exactly the amount to buy all of the new furniture that he wanted for his home.
I forgot that detail. That’s right!
Yeah. It was really a very wonderful demonstration.
So it really works, doesn’t it?
Right.
So begin to go home and clean out those physical areas. Actually clean them out that need to be cleaned out.
29 Elimination list for mental blocks
Now Martha is going to talk a little bit now about the mental aspects, things to do there.
In the mental areas, we have a way of cleansing some of these things out of our consciousness which we might call an elimination list. An elimination list—and this is the idea of letting go mentally of all of those ideas that we have been holding on in consciousness. It’s a good thing to sit down and just take a list of paper and write out all of those old thought patterns which you have been holding in consciousness which you no longer want. Go home and write out all of those mental attitudes, those mental attitudes which you have had, which you no longer desire to see manifest in your life.
Sit down in a quiet time and say, “Okay, how do I feel about prosperity? How do I feel about the things in my life?” Begin to release not only these things that you’re releasing physically, release those emotional states of consciousness which you’ve been holding on to. Also, begin to eliminate anything that may be holding you, any sense of bondage which you may have to other people. All of the things which you want to eliminate from your life, just start making a list from your mental level. Everything that you want to eliminate from your life, just write it down. Write it down. Anything, if you want to eliminate those physical things that are out there, begin to write that out.
I’m going to let go of this in the physical. I do not desire to have this type of house or furniture or anything anymore. Begin to write that on your list as things that you want to eliminate from your life. If you have old relationships which are no longer desirable or functioning in your life, now is the time to write those down on your elimination list. Just begin to write down all of the things that you want to eliminate from your life.
Once you have gotten them all written down, do you think you’re going to sit there and look at them for a long time? No. you’re going to take that list in your hands and you’re going to say, “Father, I’ve lived with these things long enough. I’m ready to let them go.” Then you’re going to burn it. You’re going to literally do the act of releasing these things which you no longer want in your consciousness through the act of burning them. I don’t recommend that you do it in the living room. I recommend that you go into the kitchen or out to your trash barrel or something where you can do the burning very easily.
Take it at the kitchen sink and then just say there and do it prayerfully and considerately and say, “I want to release these from my life.” This act of writing down the things you want to eliminate and then burning them is an act of purification which really does work. You’ll be surprised with a sense of release from burdens and a sense of bondage that you get just from that very act.
30 Forgiveness list for emotional blocks
There’s another way you can do it emotionally, Frank.
The third area that we want something to do in is this emotional area. Here we’re going to do the same thing that Martha was talking about in the mental area. She spoke of writing an elimination list. This is another list that we’re going to make out now for the emotional area but it is specifically a forgiveness list. We suggest that you go home and take a sheet of paper and head it “Forgiveness List” and begin to write on that sheet of paper the names of those people whom you need to forgive.
Put on that sheet of paper the circumstances in your life, the various situation that you have found yourself in the past or maybe in right now toward which you need to exercise some forgiveness. So you want the list the situations, the circumstances and the people involved. This is in a sense an elimination list because you’re going to be eliminating through it from your consciousness all of those negative feelings that you have been holding about certain people, about certain situations and circumstances.
Now a question that might arise at this point might be this, what does my forgiving someone else have to do with greater prosperity? Folks, it has everything in the world to do with greater prosperity because through the holding of a negative feeling, a negative thought, what we do is block the flow of Spirit. In a sense, we are not allowing God to work through us to bring our prosperity to us. It doesn’t make any difference what the nature of that emotional block is. It still does its work. It blocks the flow of Spirit.
If you build a dam to block water, really if you construct the dam properly, what’s the difference if it’s made out of earth, concrete, rocks or whatever? It’s still going to do the same job. It’s going to block the flow of water. So it is with the feelings that we hold, the specific label that we might place on them isn’t really all that important. It’s just the idea that we have a negative feeling and it must be released. Really, forgiveness is probably the most powerful tool that we can use to release these negative feelings. Why? Because un-forgiveness probably forms the greatest mental block of all.
If we’re not able to let go, let God and forgive someone else or forgive a situation, then we are really creating a dam or a block in consciousness that will very effectively block the flow of Spirit. So list those on your forgiveness list. People, circumstances and conditions and then finally and really the most important of all, put yourself on that list because you will find that as you are working through your feelings of forgiveness towards others, that suddenly as you get down underneath all of that, you’re going to have certain negative feelings toward yourself.
To really be completely cleansed and healed of all negativity, the ultimate final act is an act of self-forgiveness. So start to put yourself down on that list and then begin to forgive yourself for the feelings that you have been holding about yourself.
31 Meditation for cleansing
Now this really leads us into the final portion of this segment which is going to be a time of meditation that Martha will conduct.
We do want to remember to burn this list also. You don’t want to hold on to those. All this is with cleansing, a releasing the denial part of our mental action, of cleansing. We’re getting rid of all of these states of consciousness which we no longer need in our life and which we want to manifest even of greater freedom within us.
So now I’m going to ask you to set aside your notes for just a moment. Put them on a chair next to you and we’re going to have a brief time of meditation. We’re going to have a relaxation of body and mind. We’re going to use a very simple song to relax ourselves for meditation. This is the song which I wrote some time ago for meditation purposes. I’m going to ask Janette to play the music through so that you can hear the melody and then we’re going to relax with the music. So listen to the music. Close your eyes. Let your thinking flow inward.
The words that go with that are “I now relax. I now relax. Body and mind, I now relax.” Let’s sing that together:
I now relax. I now relax. Body and mind, I now relax.
Again. I now relax. I now relax. Body and mind, I now relax.
Feel yourself relaxing and becoming very peaceful, relaxed and still. Letting go, letting your thinking flow inward to that quiet place within you where you are always one with the One, the one presence and the one power.
Now that we have relaxed our body and our mind, we let the Spirit take us inward. We begin to consider those areas of consciousness which may need cleansing. Physically, we see those areas of our life experience that are in need of cleansing, of releasing, and mentally we see ourselves right now releasing and letting go of all those things in the outer which may be representative of our consciousness, our inner thoughts. We see ourselves making the needed changes in our dwelling. We see ourselves making the needed changes in our wardrobe. We see ourselves making the needed changes in the work areas of life.
We begin right now mentally to let go, to freely and fully surrender anything that may be blocking the flow of Spirit within us. Those mental attitudes which we have held onto are now being cast out by the light of Spirit. The light of Spirit now fills our mind. Old thoughts are now passed away and the new is coming forth. We release, we let go of those thoughts which are blocking the flow of Spirit. The light of Spirit now cleanses our consciousness. We let go and let flow through us the spirit of God. We release all sense of fear, anxiety, guilt. We let go. We freely and fully forgive all persons who may have offended us in any way whether they are on this plane or on another, makes no difference. In consciousness, we freely and fully forgive them. We release them. We let them go.
We also freely and fully forgive ourselves. We release and let go of those states of consciousness which may be blocking our good. We freely and fully forgive ourselves for all past errors in judgment, those things which we did which we may not feel good about. We let them go and we let the activity of spirit dissolve, cleanse, purify our consciousness. We let that activity of spirit begin to flow in, to fill to overflowing every phase of our consciousness bringing to us the abundance of good, bringing to us the good that we so richly deserve.
We are truly blessed of our Father. We deserve the kingdom that has been provided for us before the world was. We are open and receptive. We let the positive mental energy of spirit begin to prepare the way for the good to flow in our life in every area physically, mentally and emotionally. We recognize that we have established a state of consciousness in which this takes place and say, “Thank you Father.” Together. Thank you Father. And it is done.
