Living the Spiritual Principles of ABUNDANCE & PROSPERITY Volume (1)

Living the Spiritual Principles of ABUNDANCE & PROSPERITY
Volume (1)

JOHN-ROGER D.S S.
with PAUL KAYE D.S.S.
God is your Partner



LIVING THE SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLES OF ABUNDANCE & PROSPERITY VOLUME (1)

Mandeville Press
Los Angeles, California

© Copyright 2010 Peace Theological Seminary & College of Philosophy®
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010925886
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

P.O. Box #513935
Los Angeles, California 90051-1935
(323) 737-4055
jrbooks@mandevillepress.org
www.mandevillepress.org

Book design by Shelley Noble
Printed in China
ISBN# 978-1-935492-45-0


Contents
Intro vii
Endless Supply 1
The Antidote for Lack 3
Bringing the Divine into Action 5
There is no Failure 7
Winning in our Fantasy 9
The First Law of Spirit 11
The Protecting Hands of God 13
The Nature of Trust 15
The Law of Assumption 17
Awakening to Abundance 19
Wealth and Beauty 21
Letting Go 23
Freedom from Struggle 25
Manifesting Fullness 27
Being Unconditional 29
Knowing God 33
Always at Ease 35
In Touch with the Essence 37
Listening to the Silence 39
A Change of Consciousness 41
Soul Essence 43
Providing God with the Blueprint 45
Living in Harmony 49
Put Yourself in the Picture 51
Making the Claim 53
Afterword 57
Appendix: Sources for the Quotes 59


Intro

*JOHN-ROGER'S TEACHINGS HAVE CONTINUED TO INSPIRE ME THROUGHOUT THE 40 OR SO YEARS I HAVE BEEN STUDYING WITH HIM. J-R HAS DESCRIBED HIS TEACHINGS AS BEING A NEW LOOK AT ANCIENT IDEAS. THIS BOOK IS A FRESH TAKE ON SOME OF WHAT J-R HAS SAID ABOUT ABUNDANCE AND PROPSERITY, OFFERED WITH THE IDEA THAT WE ALL MIGHT APPLY THESE PRINCIPLES IN GREATER WAYS TO OUR LIVES.

MY SINCERE WISH IS THAT THE CONTENT OF THIS BOOK ELICITS NEW LAYERS OF MEANING FOR YOU ON ABUNDANCE AND PROSPERITY AND THAT EACH CHAPTER BECOMES A MEDITATION OR FOCUS THAT CAN BE LIVED EVERY DAY.

PAUL KAYE



ENDLESS SUPPLY

Listen, there is endless supply. Once you understand that, you are on your way to a much higher level of freedom.

John-Roger, D.S.S.


As I continually hear and read about this time being a period of contraction in the economy, the above quote by John-Roger has been a lifesaver for me. I have realized that for those following the spiritual principles of abundance and prosperity, there is absolutely no need to contract inwardly. Internalizing this quote has become an affirmation to me. Instead of focusing “out there,” I have a clear direction to put aside any feelings of lack and connect with the “endless supply.”

We have all the tools at our disposal to live an abundant, expansive, happy, and full life. That starts with God being our Partner and realizing that the supply from that Source is endless. We’ll be exploring these tools step-by-step in this book.



THE ANTIDOTE FOR LACK

The antidote for lack is gratitude. Gratitude is a choice, an attitude, an approach towards life. My gratitude for this moment does not depend on what is going on in this moment; it is the moment, regardless of what is going on, that I am grateful for.

My gratitude for this breath is not about the breath.

It’s that I am breathing, that I recognize it comes from a higher source, and that I am alive.

Gratitude is a moment-to-moment celebration.

From The Rest of Your Life: Finding Repose in the Beloved
by John-Roger, D.S.S. with Paul Kaye, D.S.S.


One of the greatest keys in my armory is gratitude. Through gratitude I can always go to a more expansive and deeper level within myself. It often requires that I be more open and have a greater ability to receive, but that is what I want anyway. When I go into gratitude, I am always rewarded.

When I look out into the world to find my reference points, before long I am projecting some kind of concern or worry about the future. When I look inside myself, check my own experience, and take a quick inventory of my blessings, life is good and I bask in gratitude.

The following is excerpted from an article on gratitude by bestselling authors Drs. Blair and Rita Justice:

Psychologists Robert Emmons at the University of California at Davis, and Michael McCullough, at the University of Miami, are foremost researchers in [the] field of gratitude. What they have learned so far is that gratitude is good for you, really good for you.

In an experimental comparison, people who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events (Emmons & McCullough, 2003). It doesn’t end there.

Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based). And there’s more. Young adults who practice a daily gratitude intervention (self-guided exercises) had higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy compared to the group that focused on hassles or thinking of how they were better off than others. The researchers keep adding to the list of benefits that come from practicing gratitude.



BRINGING THE DIVINE INTO ACTION

Creative imagination is not wishful thinking. It is bringing the Divine into action. It is bringing the Spirit into the mind, into the emotions, into the physical body, and into the physical world to manifest it.
John-Roger, D.S.S.

The above quote is one of my all-time favorite J-R quotes, and it opened up a world for me. I used to think of imagination being on a lower level of consciousness and certainly not equated with the Divine. Fortunately my ignorance is in the past, and these days I find the quote a particularly useful and relevant antidote to the apocalyptic scenarios that have become a daily media event.

When we look at putting into practice the spiritual principles of abundance and prosperity, perhaps a healthy place to start is with a good and positive creative imagination through which positive scenarios can be continually envisioned and held in our consciousness.

Many years ago, J-R gave my mother a prayer to say in answer to a question she had. He suggested she say, “Lord, I am grateful for all I have, and I am open to receiving more.” This helped me a lot, as what used to put a brake on my imagination/envisioning was the thought that I was being too greedy. Now, after saying this prayer and asking for the highest good, I feel free to imagine whatever my heart desires.

I have always loved this quote:

In my dream, the Angel shrugged and said, “If we fail this time, it will be a failure of imagination.”

And then she placed the world gently in the palm of my hand.

Brian Andreas


THERE IS NO FAILURE

You don’t fail. You just achieve whatever it is you achieve. You create “failure” by setting expectations that are never realistic and then beating yourself up when you don’t fulfill them. That’s called crazy, friends.

From Fulfilling Your Spiritual Promise by John-Roger, D.S.S.

In the movie Seven Samurai by Akira Kurasawa, the to-be head of the samurai, Kambei, has just completed a heroic act by saving an infant that had been kidnapped by a thief. Seeing this, a young, inexperienced samurai, Katsushiro, begs to be his disciple. Kambei replies, “There is nothing special about me. I may have seen my share of battles, but it’s always been from the losing side.”

At the end of the movie, after more extraordinary heroism by Kambei in which a village is saved from bandits, Kambei declares, “We lost this battle, too,” and then states that it is the villagers who are the winners.

The paradoxical nature of success and failure, victory and defeat, is just one of the many areas explored in this beautiful film. For our part in exploring the spiritual principles of abundance and prosperity, we need to keep in mind that if we feel we have failed in any way, it is just a feeling. There is no objective reality to our failure—which means we are making it up. And since we are making it up, we can make up something entirely different, and positive, and aligned with our purpose.

Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

Winston Churchill


Psychologist Salvatore R. Maddi, PhD, and his colleagues at the University of Chicago conducted a landmark 12-year longitudinal study that involved 26,000 employees of Illinois Bell Telephone as it was being downsized by half in one year. In the enormous restructuring and change, about two-thirds of the employees in the study suffered significant performance, leadership and health problems, from heart attacks, strokes, obesity and depression as a result of the extreme job stress. One-third, though, actually thrived during the same period of corporate upheaval. What was the difference?

Maddi found that those who thrived maintained the “three C attitudes”— commitment, control and challenge. The commitment attitude made them decide to be a part of what was going on, rather than to feel isolated. The control attitude led them to try to influence outcomes, instead of lapsing into passivity and powerlessness.

The third “C” was challenge, which made stressful changes seem to be opportunities for new learning.

In the years since that study, many researchers have built on Maddi’s work on resilience. Blair Justice, PhD, concludes, “We are more resilient if we are able to transform adversity into accomplishment, to use physical crisis as a challenge to grow an emotionally and healthy nonphysical self.”

Drs. Rita and Blair Justice


WINNING IN OUR FANTASY

Don’t lose in your fantasy. Always win in your fantasy because you’re making it up. Don’t make it up as bad; make it up as good. When you worry, you’re holding pictures in your mind that you want less of, but the law of Spirit says, “What you focus upon, you become. What you focus on comes to you.” So hold in your mind what you want more of.

From Timeless Wisdoms: Volume One by John-Roger, D.S.S.

A couple of years ago I asked Barbara Wieland, the MSIA staff member in charge of the John-Roger Library and Archives, what had stood out to her as a theme in J-R’s material on the subject of health. She said it was J-R’s repeating the idea of holding thoughts and images in our minds of what we want more of.

It was a significant moment for me because I had heard J-R say that hundreds of times, but with Barbara mentioning it to me in that context and isolating it as a key theme for health, it had a major impact on the way I have directed my energy since.

Holding in our mind what we want more of is a great place to start when we approach the spiritual principles of abundance and prosperity. And, of course, it is critical to the process of seeding (which we’ll cover later in this book).

It’s very freeing, magical even, to let go of images that no longer serve us and work against us and, instead, move into holding images and pictures in our minds that are in line with our purpose. Inherent in this process is getting clearer and more focused on what we do actually want in our lives.

Last year I watched the movie The Secret. I simply had to find out what everyone was raving about. I can summarize it for you in a sentence, and it’s what J-R has said repeatedly over the years: hold pictures in your mind that you want more of. What a concept! Benjamin Franklin appears to be a man for our times. Note his “abundance mentality.”

The following is from A Life that Counts by Dr. John C. Maxwell:

Ben Franklin once wrote, “I would rather have it said ‘he lived usefully’ than ‘he died rich.’” More than just words, it was the way Franklin lived his life. One example of his useful nature was the invention of the Franklin stove. Instead of patenting it and keeping it to himself, Ben Franklin decided to share his invention with the world.

According to Dr. John C. Van Horne, Library Company of Philadelphia: “Franklin’s philanthropy was of a collective nature. His sense of benevolence came by aiding his fellow human beings and by doing good to society. In fact, in one sense, Franklin’s philanthropy, his sense of benevolence, was his religion. Doing good to mankind was, in his understanding, ‘divine.’ Even his position as a printer fit this philosophical bent. He did not hoard his ideas, but shared them, and everyone benefited. He had an ‘abundance mentality.’”

Instead of seeing the world in terms of how much money he could make, Franklin saw the world in terms of how many people he could help. To Benjamin Franklin, being useful was its own reward.

As I age, I gain perspective on the illusion of wealth and status as forms of fulfillment. I don’t want my life to be measured by dollars and cents, or the number of books I’ve authored. Rather, I want to be remembered by the lives that I’ve touched.


THE FIRST LAW OF SPIRIT

The first law of Spirit is acceptance. This is one of the most important principles in the unfolding of spiritual awareness.

Acceptance asks you to accept any situation as it is and to accept yourself as you are. You accept what is. When you set aside your feelings and thoughts and negative fantasies, “what is” is all that’s going on.

Acceptance doesn’t mean that we agree with, like, or condone what is going on. The law of acceptance allows us to look at every situation as a stepping-stone on the path to Soul and every situation as our teacher.

John-Roger, D.S.S.

Acceptance is an essential launching pad into increased abundance, and we can take a multidimensional approach to it. Not only do we accept ourselves as we are without judgment, but we also accept the current world situation and our own financial situation without judgment.

Most importantly of all, we accept that we are divine—a Soul with a direct connection to the Beloved. As we embrace this kind of acceptance, there is no place for lack. We become profoundly patient and relaxed.

One of my favorite quotes that brought home this profoundness of acceptance is from Henry Miller :

Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly.

Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end.

What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind.

Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

“Every moment a golden one.” Now that’s abundance!

Here are two more of my favorite quotes on acceptance that make me soar :

I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.

Henry David Thoreau

I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware and by far the largest to me
and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own today or in ten
thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal
cheerfulness I can wait.

From Song of Myself from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

THE PROTECTING HANDS OF GOD

Abundance through Spirit is available to all. Spirit is a constantly expansive, available energy that is dynamically present. It is up to each individual to keep the well or channel open to receive of the blessings of abundance.

Observing our beingness is the process that releases us and opens us and expands us to let the Spirit flow through us. Yes, it is a miracle, but if we try to partake of it through our egos, we block it. And so we can maintain our openness by simply saying, “Lord, I receive, and I am grateful.”

It doesn’t matter what religion you practice; we must all surrender to the highest source we can and ask for protection, for that is what surrender really is—placing ourselves into the protecting hands of God.

John-Roger, D.S.S.

I am not a big reader or quoter of the Bible, but I am a fan of some of its more lovely and poetic pieces. As I was thinking about a close friend’s need for materiality, I found my mind wandering to this evocative passage:

See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these (Matthew 6:28-29 NIV).

It moves me each time I read it because it conveys so much about true abundance and God’s unconditional giving to us all.

Openness has such a natural, relaxing quality about it. It isn’t grabbing, for in true openness there is no lack. And there is an absence of tension, for tension would restrict the openness. In openness we simply connect to God as our Partner, and let go.

For those of you who prefer a more Zen perspective, I just love these words of abundance from a Zen master :

Keep your hands open,
and all the sands of the desert
can pass through them.
Close them,
and all you can feel
is a bit of grit.

Taisen Deshimaru


THE NATURE OF TRUST

Q: How do you know if you can trust someone?

A: You can’t actually “trust” anyone; you can love everyone as you love yourself. One of the greatest challenges we have is to love ourselves unconditionally. Loving generally is a process of going inward, and trusting generally is a process of going outside yourself to another person—trying to find what you think is lacking in yourself.

In personal and business matters, build your foundation slowly with those people you associate with. Don’t sell yourself short and let them earn your respect. But give your love abundantly!

From Answers to Life’s Questions by John-Roger, D.S.S.

Many years ago, I was an assistant in a workshop that John-Roger was actually taking as a participant. In one exercise we were to mill around and when we found ourselves in front of somebody to declare either “I trust you” or “I don’t trust you.”Thus it was a tremendously tense moment when I found myself face to face with John-Roger.

When he said, “I trust you,” I felt tremendous relief and elation, and, I must admit, rather special. As an assistant, I was able to go in and out of the exercise and was able to quietly watch J-R when I could. I noticed that he was saying “I trust you” to everybody and saying it to people I wouldn’t have trusted as far as I could throw them!

Later on, J-R explained it to the group. He said that his words meant that he trusted people to do what they were going to do.

J-R’s simple words have saved me a lot of problems. When I trust people to do what they are going to do, I stay out of judgment and I am never disappointed.

These days, trust is at a premium. Since there is little to trust outwardly, we have little alternative but to look inside of ourselves to find the trust. It’s so important that we can trust ourselves, and if we live our lives honestly, both inside and out, one of the greatest and rarest assets that we will have in the world is that we will be trustworthy.

I have often thought that the world works as well as it does because of the many silent saints that surround us and go about their lives without any thought of compensation or recognition for what they do, so I was glad to find this quote:

The world is upheld by the veracity of good men: they make the earth wholesome. They who lived with them found life glad and nutritious. Life is sweet and tolerable only in our belief in such society.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

And here is a little historical perspective from Wikipedia:

The Achaemenid Persian Empire (550–330 BCE), which at the height of its power had more than 20 nations under its control, was built on the most basic principles—that of truth and justice, which formed the bases of the Achaemenid culture. Based on the Zoroastrian doctrine, it was the strong emphasis on honesty and integrity that gave the ancient Persians credibility to rule the world, even in the eyes of the people belonging to the conquered nations.

But let’s return inward and leave the last word to John-Roger:

There’s abundance from God, but not necessarily in this world. You can’t have it all in this world, but in the inner worlds you are it all. And that’s what you can trust.

John-Roger, D.S.S.


THE LAW OF ASSUMPTION

We make a lot of assumptions in life, and we can get into a mess by not checking them out and communicating clearly. We assume things that we later find out aren’t so. But before we dismiss assumption altogether, we should look at its positive side, its spiritual counterpart. When your consciousness is crystal clear, you can assume things and know that they are so. This is an entirely different process from ordinary assumption.

In the spiritual realm, first you know something, then you assume; you claim your knowing. As you assume this knowing, you become Soul, you become love, you become joy, you become health. In your heart, you become all those things.

Can you really become all those things? Do it now.

Use the Law of Assumption for your upliftment and spiritual growth. Assume that you are healthy, assume that you are awake, assume that you are divine, assume that you have abundance.

God didn’t put us on Earth and say, “Beg.” He said, “All I’ve got is yours.” When you live by the Law of Assumption, you cannot second-guess or doubt yourself. There must be crystal clarity inside you, a deep, certain knowing, not merely belief.

From What’s It Like Being You, Living Life as Your True Self
by John-Roger, D.S.S. with Paul Kaye, D.S.S

Last year I went to see the movie Redbelt, a martial arts thriller, by David Mamet. The opening scene was a powerful one for me. Two jiu-jitsu players are fighting on the dojo mat and one has a tight stranglehold on the other. The instructor and hero of the movie, Mike Terry, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, shouts out to the trapped man in an authoritative way, “Breathe. There is always an escape.

BREATHE. THERE IS ALWAYS AN ESCAPE.”

His voice resonated throughout the empty dojo, and it also resonated deeply within me and still does to this day. Now, when I am faced with a situation where I am having difficulty—from something as simple as opening a package to a seemingly impossible-to-resolve situation—I remind myself, “Breathe. There is always an escape.”

When I read the above quote from J-R, I am reminded that we never, ever need to look at ourselves as victims of anything. There is always an escape into freedom—which is often only an assumption, or a shift in attitude, or a breath away.

Rumi shows us another path to freedom:

Take someone who doesn’t keep score,
Who’s not looking to be richer, or afraid of losing,
Who has not even the slightest interest in his own personality:
He’s free.

AWAKENING TO ABUNDANCE

The sleeper goes for abundance by manifesting illusion out of greed and insecurity.

The one who is awakened only has to take in the next breath.

From The Tao of Spirit by John-Roger, D.S.S.

There are many ways I catch myself “asleep.” By far the most common is my busyness—always having something I need to do. By extending outside myself, I lose my center. Best to have my center and then extend from there. The center somehow has a wisdom about how far to extend, if at all.

Many years ago, this rhyme spontaneously came to me:

I found I got more done by moving slowly,
so I stopped to ask myself why
I found in moving slowly I caught the moment
whereas in rushing it passed me by

While being Poet Laureate is plainly not in my future, I still find a lot of truth in the last two lines. When I slow down and “take in the next breath,” I suddenly become aware of the abundance of beauty in and around me.

I found this passage from a book review quite illuminating:

One theme of the book is that ordinariness can yield much more pleasure than is normally assumed. All the striving for happiness in our culture may cause us to overlook the riches of the familiar and near at hand.

To the extent that the author has a secret to happiness, it resides in slowing down enough to pay attention to what you might call the grammar of experience. When you take the time to examine the world around you, parsing what you see, hear, and feel, you find that the plainest occurrence is surprisingly rich.

Works of art invite this kind of slow-motion reflection in its most concentrated form. Most museum-goers, the author notes, spend less than 10 seconds in front of any given painting. Instead, Mr Spiegelman pulls up a chair. At the Brera Gallery in Milan, he tells us, he once sat looking at Piero della Francesca’s Montefeltro altarpiece for 25 minutes before anyone else wandered into the room. A great deal of experience, he implies, benefits from a similar kind of attentiveness.

From The Wall St Journal, 4/30/09,
by Wes Davis on Seven Pleasures by Willard Spiegelman

WEALTH AND BEAUTY

If I could really get you to understand that you are the source individually of all things around you, you would have the knowledge necessary for your life to come abundantly to you.

When you go out there in the world to “get” things, you are operating from lack. You are saying, “I don’t have this within me, so I have to find someone to give it to me.”

If you could know that you are the source, you would not operate from lack. You would be manifesting your natural abundance, and the presence of Spirit would be with you.

John-Roger, D.S.S.

I find wealth and beauty to be interrelated. If one finds beauty in something, there is a feeling of fullness and expansion. I have experienced this to be even more so when beauty is found in the ordinary and unassuming.

The comparisons we make with others, and the resultant lack, allow us to slip too easily into playing the victim, so I have thought a lot about how true beauty and true wealth cannot possibly depend on the circumstances of our lives—having money, property, physical attractiveness, etc.

Knowing inside me that the hand we have been dealt does not truly matter in the big scheme of things, I have struggled with a way to put together, in a workable and meaningful way, a context in which I can view my own circumstances alongside someone else’s and still remain inwardly free.

Last year a phrase came to me that reconciled all the opposing and conflicting thoughts I was having on this (my Theory of Everything): What determines a life are not its circumstances, but the consciousness in which it is lived.

That gave me the context and altitude I was looking for, and it has brought me to a place of greater freedom and neutrality. For the above reasons I have been attracted to the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi. It has helped me find riches at times when, outwardly, I had little.

Wabi-sabi means treading lightly on the planet and knowing how to appreciate whatever is encountered, no matter how trifling, whenever it is encountered. It’s about the delicate balance between the pleasure we get from things and the pleasure we get from freedom from things. Things wabi-sabi are understated and unassuming, yet not without presence or quiet authority. The simplicity of wabi-sabi is probably best described as the state of grace arrived at by a sober, modest, heartfelt intelligence. The main strategy of this intelligence is economy of means—pare down to the essence but don’t remove the poetry.

From Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren

LETTING GO

When one person becomes free of materiality, it’s like an infection going the other way. Instead of greed affecting honest people, honest people start affecting the greedy.

You let go and give to God, joyfully and unconditionally. With people who say, “I don’t have enough to tithe,” I say, “Don’t tithe,” because their feelings of lack are telling them that they’re going to need it. And with that attitude, they won’t have enough anyway. Because they’re hanging on, God can’t supply them with more.

They’re holding on to it, scared to death about letting go of it. However, if they let go, they can rise to new heights inside themselves and get freer.

From God Is Your Partner by John-Roger, D.S.S.

I am continually fascinated with the idea and practice of letting go. Perhaps it’s because I have been so tense and worried for most of my life. Perhaps it is also because Letting Go and Letting God is an integral part of MSIA’s teachings. Or perhaps it is simply that letting go feels so good. Whether physically, mentally, emotionally, or unconsciously, I love the feeling of spaciousness that letting go evokes.

Letting go can be as simple as asking myself to gently lower my shoulders when they are getting ever closer to my ears.“Why do we need to fight gravity?” I ask myself.

When I am rigid in my thinking, I can remind myself of the words of a Chinese Zen master: “When I say not to think, I mean that if you have a thought, think nothing of it.”

If I truly believe that this world is perfect just the way it is, then what am I holding on to anyway? I can let go—and smile while I do it. And if I am still stuck, I can slowly, consciously, and gently exhale so that I get really clear, viscerally, that letting go is essential to living.

We do not live merely to “do something”—no matter what. We do not live more fully merely by doing more, seeing more, tasting more, and experiencing more than we ever have before.

On the contrary, some of us need to discover that we will not begin to live more fully until we have the courage to do and see and taste and experience much less than usual.

Thomas Merton

FREEDOM FROM STRUGGLE

People who struggle in this lifetime are playing the fool. It is not a struggle; it’s a game.

John-Roger, D.S.S.

I place a lot of value on effortlessness. When I see it in action, it thrills and inspires me—a ballet dancer, a basketball player soaring to the hoop. (Of course, ironically, this effortlessness was not attained without a lot of effort.)

But living effortlessly is not only for great athletes. J-R’s quote above triggered a memory of this snippet from an interview with the Indian sage Krishnamurti by the late and brilliant London Times theatre critic (and Insight graduate) Bernard Levin. It has had an enormous influence on me.

Bernard Levin: But can we live in the real world that we do live in where we have to catch trains and go to offices and buy bread in the shop…?

Krishnamurti: Yes, I’ve done all those.

BL: How can we combine all the pressures of the mundane world around us?

K: I wouldn’t do anything under pressure.

BL: You wouldn’t—I wish I didn’t!

K: No, I refuse to be under pressure, either intellectually or psychologically. I don’t mind starving, I don’t mind having no job, but I refuse to be put in that position.

The above still gets to me. What strength of purpose!

As an unnamed Hopi Elder famously said, “Banish the word ‘struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.”

In practicing the spiritual principles of abundance and prosperity, we, too, can let go of struggle and, instead, relax. And in relaxing, open and receive of grace.

W. H. Bates, M.D., in his classic book Better Sight Without Glasses, written in the 1920s, said this:

Things are seen just as they are felt or heard or tasted, without effort or volition on the part of the subject. When sight is perfect, the letters on the test card are waiting, perfectly black and perfectly distinct, to be recognized. They do not have to be sought; they are there. In imperfect sight they are sought and chased. The eye goes after them. An effort is made to see them.

Every thought of effort in the mind, of whatever sort, transmits a motor impulse to the eye and lessens the sensitiveness of the center of sight. Mental strain of any kind always produces a conscious or unconscious eyestrain, and if the strain takes the form of an effort to see, an error in focus is always produced.

While there are many causes of strains, there is only one cure for all of them—relaxation. This relaxation cannot, however, be obtained by any sort of effort. It is fundamental that a person should understand this; so long as he thinks, consciously or unconsciously, that relief from strain may be obtained by another strain, the improvement will be delayed.

MANIFESTING FULLNESS

If we ask for anything in terms of this world, in terms of Spirit, in terms of another individual—we must be willing to give to receive. We must be willing to make the first overture, that first presentation.

If we’re going to manifest fullness, then we must represent fullness. If we represent fullness all the time, what do we have? Fullness.

It’s not positive thinking because you can positively think it full and not be full. You manifest fullness. You become that all the time. And no matter what happens, you pull from inside of you and give of the fullness.

John-Roger, D.S.S.

I am fascinated by the paradox that we live in the most prosperous times ever, yet many of us don’t feel that way. For example, just 100 years ago, life expectancy was only 47 years old and people were likely to die not from heart failure or cancer, but from an infection (penicillin had not yet been invented). Yet, instead of being grateful, we are now very much into “anti-aging” and stressing about looking older. Oh, the money being spent on cosmetic surgery and botox!

In The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse by Greg Easterbrook, the author gives several reasons why we are still not content. One of them is that we have “Satisfied Expectations.” This is where, because current society has so much, it is hard for people to expect that the future will bring even more. This, according to Easterbrook, leads to “Collapse Anxiety,” where we think and worry that it is only a matter of time before things collapse.

We can, of course, at any time, take a moment to look, relax, and receive all the abundance around us. Even if we are stuck in traffic, we can appreciate that our car is working, that we have gas in it, and, most importantly, we can be grateful that we arrived at our destination safe and well. And, despite everything you read and hear, we can all be thankful for the miracle that things run as well as they do.

The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is “look under foot.” You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world.

From Leaf and Tendril by John Burroughs

BEING UNCONDITIONAL

And the reason all this works is that you let go and give to God, joyfully and unconditionally.

From God Is Your Partner by John-Roger, D.S.S.

I have long been fascinated with unconditionality. I must confess to finding its rarefied state a difficult one to get into, mainly because I consistently allow myself to have high expectations and, thus, find myself consistently disappointed. You’d think I’d smarten up, although I must say that what I have learned from the process is to laugh at my folly.

Nonetheless, the one area that I find I can live the unconditionality is in giving my tithe to MSIA. Giving unconditionally makes the giving a pleasure and an expansive process. I think this takes place because, inside of me, I am giving to God, and I know that what I am giving was never really mine anyway.

Here are some more of my other favorite John-Roger quotes on unconditionality:

Freedom from stress, insecurity, and anxiety lies in loving yourself and accepting yourself unconditionally.

You can be everything you want to be as soon as you unconditionally become unconditional.

It is the unconditionalness of life that must be lived.

As we explore the spiritual principles of abundance and prosperity more deeply, please keep unconditionality in mind. It is key, as J-R’s beginning quote makes abundantly clear.

From The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi) by Hermann Hesse:

There sat the man I revered, my patron, my friend, whom I had loved and trusted ever since I could think, who had always responded to whatever I might say—there he sat and listened to me talk, or perhaps did not listen to me, and had barricaded himself completely behind his radiance and smile, behind his golden mask, unreachable, belonging to a different world with different laws; and everything I tried to bring by speech from our world to his ran off him like rain from a stone. At last—I had already given up hope—he broke through the magic wall; at last he helped me; at last he said a few words. Those were the only words I heard him speak today.

“You are tiring yourself, Joseph,” he said softly, his voice full of that touching friendliness and solicitude you know so well. That was all. “You are tiring yourself, Joseph.” As if he had long been watching me engaged in a too strenuous task and wanted to admonish me to stop. He spoke the words with some effort, as though he had not used his lips for speaking for a long time. And at that moment he laid his hand on my arm—it was light as a butterfly—looked penetratingly into my eyes, and smiled. At that moment I was conquered. Something of his cheerful silence, something of his patience and calm passed into me; and suddenly I understood the old man and the direction his nature had taken, away from people and toward silence, away from words and toward music, away from ideas and toward unity. I understood what I was privileged to see here, and now for the first time grasped the meaning of his smile, this radiance. A saint, one who has attained perfection, had permitted me to dwell in his radiance for an hour; and blunderer that I am, I had tried to entertain him, to question him, to seduce him into a conversation. Thank God the light had not dawned on me too late. I would have been deprived of the most wonderful and remarkable experience I have ever had.

After he had said to me, “You are tiring yourself,” I was at last able to stop straining at conversation; I managed not only to be still, but to turn my will away from the foolish goal of using words in the effort to probe this man of silence and draw profit from him. And the moment I gave up that effort and left everything to him, it all went of its own accord.

KNOWING GOD

It’s very true that if you tithe, you know God, but it is also true that if you want to know God, you tithe. The statement works both ways.

From God Is Your Partner by John-Roger, D.S.S.

I had been talking about tithing for over 20 years when John Morton made the statement, “I tithe, therefore I know God.” I was giddy with excitement. When a few months later, J-R made the above statement, I was beside myself. It was the perfect way to share about tithing.

It was only very recently that I actually asked myself why on earth one would know God through tithing. It became very clear to me that the act of tithing is 100 percent consciousness. Understandably, most people focus on the money aspect, but it really has very little, if anything, to do with that.

What does matter is what is inside us. We are accountable to our true selves, and we know, at a deep level, what we are doing. We can fool others, but we cannot fool ourselves. That is why the attitude with which we give is the whole key to tithing.

Giving joyfully and unconditionally, with gratitude, to the source of our spiritual teachings is a vast inner statement to our being. The act of tithing done in this way resonates throughout our inner universe and is transcendent in nature, rising above materiality into true wealth. That’s why it is a sacred act and connects us with the Divine.

THE ARC OF A TITHER

Here is a letter from Alethea Lamb, which describes many people’s tithing process in a very articulate way.

I’ve been tithing and seeding for nearly two years now, and keeping a money magnet for about a year. Over the past few months, however, due to some unexpected expenditures and tightness with my funds, I lowered my tithe to one percent, and on one month didn’t tithe at all.

I recently got laid off from my job, and had been even more concerned about how I would be able to “afford” to tithe. After re-reading God is Your Partner, I not only realized that I can’t afford not to tithe, but I also became aware of the many, many blessings and miracles that have been present in my life since I began tithing that I hadn’t necessarily equated at the time with doing it.

The biggest thing that has happened has been a change in my consciousness. I somehow feel lifted, taken care of, and not concerned or all that attached to money when I am tithing. Things seem to flow, I always have enough, and I feel continuously blessed. I am so happy to be reconnected to my faith and to have God as my Partner. It feels very joyous to be tithing and seeding, and I will continue to tithe the full 10 percent as this feels right to me, and like it is the magic number!

ALWAYS AT EASE

Tithing is a way of saying, “God, pour forth whatever blessing You have for me.” God is health, or lack of disease. God is always at ease, always present, always now, and is constantly creating and expanding.

From God Is Your Partner by John-Roger, D.S.S.

My favorite joke of all time is about three religious Jews arguing about whose rabbi is the greatest. One claims his rabbi is so devout and fearful of the Lord that he trembles night and day and has to be strapped to his bed so that he doesn’t fall out.

The second claims his rabbi is so holy and close to God that God trembles and is afraid of displeasing the rabbi.

The third says that his rabbi is the greatest because, “My rabbi went through both those stages. First, my rabbi trembled. Then God trembled. Then my rabbi turned to God and said, “Why should we both tremble?’”

I thought of that joke when I read J-R’s profound quote above. If “God is always at ease, always present, always now,” why should I tremble? Why even worry? Why be unnecessarily tense? In fact, why don’t I jump on the bandwagon with God and be at ease? After all, God is my Partner.

Okay, I’ve convinced myself. I’ll start. Right now.

Continuing my single-handed attempt to change 5,000 years of human history by combining Jewish culture with being at ease, I have often been inspired by this story:

The first interview was with an elderly man whose job was to make lox sandwiches in a Manhattan deli. He spent his entire day slicing salmon—that was the extent of the challenges he encountered at work. One might have expected him to have found his task boring, but he discussed it with the enthusiasm of a poet or a surgeon.

He described how every fish he picked up was different from its predecessor. He would hold the fish by its tail and slap it against the marble counter, looking at it and feeling it ripple until he developed a three-dimensional mental X-ray of its anatomy. Then he would pick up one of his five knives—which he sharpened to perfection several times a day—and go about the business of slicing the fish as finely as possible with the fewest moves, discarding the least amount of good meat.

It was an excellent illustration of how, by paying attention, one can transform even the least promising task into a complex, satisfying activity. For that man cutting fish was not a job, but an enjoyable vocation.

From Good Business by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

IN TOUCH WITH THE ESSENCE

To have abundance in Soul does not mean having lots of things; it means having access to, and communion with, the essence of all things.

Once you are in touch with that, you have all things inside you.

You don’t feel any lack. You have fullness and gratitude, and you walk free, knowing that whatever you need will come to you.

From What’s It Like Being You? by John-Roger, D.S.S., with Paul Kaye, D.S.S.

In 2002, I facilitated a Zen of Spirit retreat in Japan, with Steve Beimel as our guide. We had stopped at the house of a master potter, one who was less traditional and more artistically inclined than the others we had seen. I sat on the floor of his living room as he gave us a short talk. On the shelf next to me, my eye caught the most beautiful tea bowl I had ever seen. (The tea bowl is a sacred object to many and is used to whisk matcha, a powdered green tea, usually as part of Chado—the Way of Tea—or, as it is more commonly known in the West, “the tea ceremony.”)

I picked up the bowl and held it adoringly. Every aspect and every angle inspired and moved me. The price of $2,000 was beyond what I could afford, so I decided to sit in silence and take the essence of the tea bowl into me. I thought that, at least, the essence could be mine as an inner reality, even if I didn’t own the bowl physically.

Sitting in silence with the tea bowl, now within me, brought me to a place of fulfillment, quiet, and abundance. Even though I wasn’t going to possess the tea bowl physically, I lacked for nothing and was complete.

From that experience I discovered that I didn’t have to possess a lot of material things, that through attuning to something’s essence, or at least the essence as I perceived it, it would vibrate inside me and I could experience the fullness of having it.

I have learned to do the same thing with nature. I live in a gritty part of urban Los Angeles—lots of concrete—but by recalling the essence of beautiful scenes from nature that I have experienced, I can make nature part of my environment.

There was a wonderful end to the tea bowl story. Unknown to me, the retreat participants pitched in and bought the bowl for me. That afternoon, Steve Beimel and I, along with the two women who had helped with the collection, went to the potter’s home to collect the tea bowl. The potter was not there, but his beautiful wife took us into the living room and, taking the bowl in her hands, explained that the bowl had a soul (they take their tea bowls very seriously!) and that the tea bowl is actually made by two artists. The first artist is the potter. But the most important artist is the owner of the bowl, for how they use and treat it determines what it will become.

So I had the blessing of the physical bowl plus the inner bowl. I still have the tea bowl and enjoy its beauty every day. But the most valuable gift was the lesson I learned that day about the essence of things.

LISTENING TO THE SILENCE

Rather than saying, “I need that chocolate cake, I need that car, I need that dress, I need that house,” move into the true essence inside you, the truly aligned direction of your life.

Then all those other material things can appear as a by-product, not as a focus.

One of the first steps into that true essence is to be silent. In silence, intuition kicks in, and we find that God is our source.

From What’s It Like Being You? by John-Roger, D.S.S., with Paul Kaye, D.S.S.

I find that as I get older it becomes more important, and more pleasurable, to spend time in quiet contemplation. I call it “gathering myself.” I sit quietly, mostly in the morning, often ruminating on the miracle of life in and around me and how grateful and blessed I am. Sometimes I just sit, thinking of nothing, enjoying the silence. And then I get up and go about my day.

Silence is not just not talking. It’s a place where all things come from. All voices, all creation comes out of this silence. So when you’re standing on the edge of silence, you hear things you’ve never heard before, and you hear things in ways you’ve never heard them before.

John Francis

The following is from The Rest of Your Life: Finding Repose in the Beloved by John-Roger, D.S.S., with Paul Kaye, D.S.S.:

The best course is to stay in your loving. There is absolutely no need to play the game that you are no good, or that you are not worthy. It’s a fool’s game. Claim that you are divine and allow yourself to soar in that awareness. Do not fear who you are. Relax into your very cells and know you have everything you need in this moment.

When you feel tension, let go of your resistance. When you feel life is too hard, stop pushing. When you stop the push you may feel less tired. Are you pushing to get hold of something that is not yours and never will be?

If you can stop for a moment in your thinking and your questing and listen to the silence, you may start becoming aware of many levels of consciousness, and that you are a multi-dimensional being existing on all levels simultaneously. The trick is to learn to shift your awareness to where you wish to be.

Those who sit very quietly in the silence that roars the name of the Lord, and do the most mundane jobs in love and devotion, are performing a beautiful service that God sees as very great indeed.

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.

Mahatma Gandhi

A CHANGE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Manifestation is successful only if it results in a change of consciousness.

That’s a little different from how most people see it. Manifestation has usually been defined as the ability to make something appear physically.

But if you only take into account the materialization of a physical form, you have missed the essence of creation.

When manifestation results in a change of consciousness, you no longer need to see the form in the outer world, but you move to the very essence of its fulfillment inside of you and then you truly have it.

Truly having something does not mean you possess it as a form, but that it is present for you in its essence.

From The Rest of Your Life by John-Roger, D.S.S., with Paul Kaye, D.S.S.

In sharing the spiritual principles of abundance and prosperity, J-R puts it all together for us in the above quote. It’s why I love MSIA’s teachings so much—the focus is always pointing back inside us, where everything resides. And as we open up to our inner being, what riches unfold!

You do not need to leave your room...
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Do not even listen, simply wait.
Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked.
It has no choice.
It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Franz Kafka

SOUL ESSENCE

You can go out and create all sorts of jobs and all sorts of money, yet still remain closed.

True manifestation reveals your very being, your Soul. You identify with the trueness of you, not with your personality, mind, emotions, or body, but with the divine center within, the “I am that I am.”

The true self is not affected by time or space, or change, or outside pressure. It knows neither lack nor desire. It is sufficient in itself.

When we manifest correctly, we’re manifesting ourselves. What else is there? The self is me, and it is you. It is God. All we have to do is manifest as a Soul, not a personality; not as someone trying to attract things, but as someone expressing goodness to others.

One of the clearest signs of the Soul essence, the true self, is that it is giving.

From What’s It Like Being You? by John-Roger, D.S.S., with Paul Kaye, D.S.S.

Los Angeles is one of the world’s epicenters for the importance of image—of how one looks to others. Having had ample opportunity to observe what makes a person truly attractive, I have consistently found it to be in people who are simply comfortable with themselves.

The quality of relaxation and ease about them shines through, no matter what the person may look like outwardly. When I have seen this quality in anyone, including homeless people or those with physical deformities, it has lifted my heart and inspired me. The absence of any self-consciousness on their part has seemed to me to be the Soul emanating from them.

What a ministry these people have, even though they may not even be aware of it. After all, they are just being themselves—simple and unadorned. As J-R says, “If you move from a state of tension, you will be blocked,” and “If you always move from your center of relaxation, you will be free.”

That freedom is certainly radiating out from them and touching to others, and the world is a better place for it.

The harder we press on a violin string, the less we can feel it. The louder we play, the less we hear. The more relaxed and ready the muscles are, the more different ways they can move. The method is to free up the hands, arms, shoulders, every part of the body, making them strong, soft, and supple so that inspiration can pass unimpeded down the nerve-muscle-mind channels.

Our fears, doubts, and rigidities are manifested physiologically, as excessive muscular tension. If I “try” to play, I fail; if I force the play, I crush it; if I race, I trip. Any time I stiffen or brace myself against some error or problem, the very act of bracing would cause the problem to occur. The only road to strength is vulnerability.

From Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch

PROVIDING GOD WITH THE BLUEPRINT

Q: If God’s my Partner, can I just seed and let him decide what to do?
A: No, because he’s saying to you, “Give me a blueprint of what you want.” Your job is to provide God with the blueprint.

From God Is Your Partner by John-Roger, D.S.S.

I have often wondered why the process of seeding has such a high success rate. The first thing that always comes to mind is that when we seed, the first essential step is for us to get very clear on exactly what it is that we want. When that clarity emerges from us, it sends a very clear message to ourselves and to Spirit— and the energy is set in motion.

In 1993, on my way back from having done a workshop on the spiritual principles of abundance and prosperity in Spain, I was reading a book by Deepak Chopra called Ageless Body, Timeless Mind. Dr. Chopra talked a lot about the “quantum field,” which could be described as the place where modern science meets spirituality.

One section of the book that particularly caught my eye was an explanation about how people realize their intentions. Dr. Chopra laid out the mechanics of his methodology in a way almost identical to the steps we take in seeding. To quote from the book:

1. A certain outcome is intended.

2. The intention is specific and definite; the person is certain about what he or she wants.

3. The person takes an attitude of non-interference.

4. The person expects a result and has confidence in the outcome.

There is no anxious attachment to the result.

Worry, uncertainty, and doubt are the three primary obstacles that prevent us from making efficient use of the power contained in every intention. The power is still there but we turn it against itself. In other words, when you doubt that a desire will come true, essentially you are sending out a self-defeating intention, which the field computes as canceling your first desire.

5. Every fulfilled intention teaches you how to fulfill the next intention even better.

6. At the end of the process, there is no doubt that the outcome was obtained by a definite, conscious process that extends beyond the individual to a larger reality—for some this is God or Providence.

Later on in the book, Dr. Chopra mentions that “being so conditioned by the materialist worldview, all of us tend to look for material results. However, someone who wishes for wealth may actually be desiring the security that they imagine wealth brings, and if that intention is dominant in their awareness, the field might favor an outcome that brought a sense of security rather than material wealth. The feedback produced from an intention is capable of manifesting in unexpected ways, but some result is always produced, however faint.”

Sometimes another perspective with a new twist can help bring clarity and insight. I am grateful to Deepak Chopra for his.

If you could make one thing come true that would change everything for your project, do you know what the one thing would be?

One breakthrough client, one technical advance, one testimonial? One achievable change in the world?

For Google, the one thing was a big thing: “We need to be the place people come to search.” But for many sites, many companies, there isn’t a thing. They can’t articulate it. They have no wish.

If you have no wish, how can it possibly come true?

Seth Godin, June 13, 2009

(You can read more about the seeding process in the free online version of God Is Your Partner at www.godismypartner.org/goodies_get.php)

LIVING IN HARMONY


Tithing and seeding—done with the right attitude of giving—can open your Spirit and bring you to an inner peace inside, by balancing some of the karmic blocks that have stood in your way.

And if, on top of that, you get the material things, you’re getting your cake and eating it, too.

From God Is Your Partner by John-Roger, D.S.S.

Our values are what we consider important in life, and they become the principles we live by. Of course, the first step is to know what our values actually are.

In this time of world economic, social, political, and environmental re-ordering, I think we are being presented with a gift—the opportunity to re-order our own lives around what is important to us, what really matters, and live accordingly.

Of course, we can choose to simplify our lives as there is always so much to unclutter and organize, but even that can be a distraction from what really matters to us in our hearts.

My experience is that when we live in accord with our values, we live in harmony with ourselves, and that harmony has a way of radiating out to others.

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.

Confucius

I shall never forget the picture of him saying his prayers on a bare ledge just beyond the cabin, looking toward the west. He went out each evening alone after supper, and I can see his black silhouette kneeling there. If ever a man exuded a sense of wholeness, it was he. He knelt for a long time, part of the North he had become, of many expeditions by canoe, snowshoe, and dog team, of the bitter cold and near starvation, but also of the serenity that comes when one knows he has given all and asked for nothing.

Serenity comes from wholeness, and one finds it in strange places. Once in a large city, while I was riding a subway, a woman took a seat just opposite mine. She was neither young nor old, but for some reason the profile of her face struck me, and it was not until she turned and smiled briefly that I saw the serenity in her eyes. I wanted to talk to her but did not dare, and although this happened many years ago, I have never forgotten the look on her countenance. She got off shortly and I watched her go with regret, but her serenity left itself with me. What gave her a sense of peace and wholeness I shall never know.

From Reflections from The North Country by Sigurd F. Olson

PUT YOURSELF IN THE PICTURE

My friend told me…“I seeded for that horse. That was yours.” I said, “Tell me about the image you were holding.” So he told me, and I said, “You never saw me on the horse on the [Windermere] property.” He said, “No, I didn’t. I just saw the horse for you.”

I told him, “If it’s for me, you’ve got to put me in the picture with the horse, and you’ve got to put both of us at Windermere.”

The next day we received a phone call about another horse, and we drove out to see it. We both looked and said, “That’s the palomino.” About a week later that horse was at Windermere, and I was riding it.

From God Is Your Partner by John-Roger, D.S.S.

As J-R says about the seeding process, “We hold clearly the inner picture of what we want, and then we seed for it. This is a fast way to personal abundance.”

While we can often successfully picture what we want, we just as often don’t see ourselves in the picture, getting it.

Like the J-R quote above, John Hosher’s book Seed Money is also instructive. Mr. Hosher, talking about seeding for more money, says, “You must be able to conceive yourself as having the amount you claim,” and he also recommends seeing what you are going to do with the money—for example, envisioning the details of depositing it in the bank, or clearly seeing yourself spending it on what you want.

Part of the value of the seeding process is that it helps get us clear on exactly what it is we do want. I have thought that I wanted lots of things, but when it came down to actually being clear and seeding for them, they all sort of miraculously disappeared.

So seeding has become a great focusing tool for me to attain clarity on various matters. Seeing ourselves clearly in the picture adds to the challenge and commitment of holding for what we want—for the highest good, of course.

I find it interesting that there is being centered in the true self, which to me is part of the seeding process, and then there is also being self-centered.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in his bestselling book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, has this to say:

A person who is constantly worried about how others will perceive them, who is afraid of creating the wrong impression, or of doing something inappropriate, is also condemned to permanent exclusion from enjoyment. So are people who are excessively self-centered.

A self-centered individual is usually not self-conscious, but instead evaluates every bit of information only in terms of how it is related to their desires. For such a person everything is valueless in itself. A flower is not worth a second look unless it can be used; a man or a woman who cannot advance one’s interests does not deserve further attention. Consciousness is structured entirely in terms of its own ends, and nothing is allowed to exist in it that does not conform to those ends.

MAKING THE CLAIM

When you seed, you need to do it with the real faith of the heart. You state what you want very clearly. Then you claim it as already being here, which is conditioning the consciousness.

To receive, you need to act as though you have it; this is the faith statement that it is already present.

Faith seeding is powerful. The faith is claiming that you will receive prior to it coming to you. You have to claim what you seed for, but you have to claim it in God’s time and love.

From God Is Your Partner by John-Roger, D.S.S.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours (Mark 11:24 NIV).

These words of Jesus are perhaps some of the most profound words ever said. Certainly, each time I read them I am once again inspired to seed from my heart.

My first experience of the “claim” was about 10 years ago when my wife, Shelley, and I were looking to rent our first place together. After we talked it over and made a list of our preferences, the “blueprint” on what I needed to seed for came very clear to me.

Once I placed the seed, I found myself hoping that the rental property I seeded for actually existed, was available, and would eventually come to us. Fortunately, I caught myself repeating this wobbly, doubt-filled thinking and said to myself, “What am I doing? I’ve seeded. It’s done. What I’ve seeded for has manifested—my job is to find where it is.”

That little self-talk changed the whole game for me. From being passive and vaguely hopeful, I was suddenly filled with enthusiasm. It was now an adventure to find the harvest that God had prepared.

We did, indeed, find our special place to rent, and it exceeded our expectations. And I got a great lesson in faith and seeding.

The concept of claiming runs deep and has many implications on many levels. Here is another look from The Life and Work of Martha Graham by Agnes De Mille:

I was bewildered and worried that my entire scale of values was untrustworthy. I confessed that I had a burning desire to be excellent, but no faith that I could be.

Martha said to me, very quietly:

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique.

“And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it.

“It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

“You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.”

I think that Martha Graham’s advice to “keep the channel open” is a wonderful direction for us to take as we live the spiritual principles of abundance and prosperity. So I’ll close this first volume with a repetition of my favorite John-Roger quote on abundance and prosperity. It is one that keeps revealing new dimensions for me, and we will be revisiting it in the next volume:

If I could really get you to understand that you are the source individually of all things around you, you would have the knowledge necessary for your life to come abundantly to you.

When you go out there in the world to “get” things, you are operating from lack. You are saying, “I don’t have this within me, so I have to find someone to give it to me.”

If you could know that you are the source, you would not operate from lack. You would be manifesting your natural abundance, and the presence of Spirit would be with you.

John-Roger, D.S.S.

AFTERWORD

John-Roger’s book God Is Your Partner laid out the spiritual principles of abundance and prosperity in a very clear and practical way. Living the Spiritual Principles of Abundance and Prosperity is inspired by that foundation.

In April 2009, I started an e-newsletter called God Is My Partner to encourage people to practice the abundance tools John-Roger has so lovingly laid out for us. The response was more than I could have hoped for, and many people requested that the pieces be put in a book. This first volume is a response to that and contains the first 25 newsletters.

If you are new to John-Roger’s work, two terms that you will see throughout this book and the subsequent volumes are tithing and seeding. These are two of the fundamental practices for living an abundant life. Tithing is the spiritual practice of giving 10 percent of one’s increase to God by giving it to the Source of one’s spiritual teachings. Seeding is a form of prayer to God for something that one wants to manifest in the world. It is done by placing a “seed” with (giving an amount of money to) the Source of one’s spiritual teachings.

God Is Your Partner has step-by-step directions for both tithing and seeding and describes how to create financial abundance and other things you want by working with God. The book also explains the spiritual basis of tithing and seeding and why it is very hard for people to shake you loose from your spirit if you have done both tithing and seeding.

God is Your Partner can be obtained free of charge by;

1. Downloading a pdf at www.godismypartner.org/goodies_get.php

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APPENDIX: SOURCES FOR THE QUOTES

Here are the sources for the quotes that are not cited in the text.

THE ANTIDOTE FOR LACK, page 3
The article by Drs. Blair and Rita Justice was from the Health Leader: An Online Wellness Magazine from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas.

BRINGING THE DIVINE INTO ACTION, page 5
Brain Andreas’ works can be found at www.storypeople.com.

THERE IS NO FAILURE, page 7
The article by Drs. Blair and Rita Justice was from While in This World in Health Leader: An Online Wellness Magazine from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas.

THE FIRST LAW OF SPIRIT, page 11
The Henry Miller quote is from his book The World of Sex,. Chicago: Ben Abramson, Argus Book Shop, 1940.

The Henry David Thoreau quote is from his essay Civil Disobedience written in 1849.

THE PROTECTING HANDS OF GOD, page 13
Taisen Deshimaru (1914-1982) as quoted in Zen to Go (1989) by John Winokur, page 126.

THE NATURE OF TRUST, page 15
The Emerson quote comes from Representative Men: Seven Lectures (which can be found free of charge on Google Books).

THE LAW OF ASSUMPTION, page 17
Jalal al-Din Rumi as translated in Quartrain #116 from Open Secret by John Moyne and Coleman Barks published by Threshold Books; Presumed First Edition (December 1983).

LETTING GO, page 23
The Thomas Merton (1915-1968) quote is from his book No Man Is an Island.

FREEDOM FROM STRUGGLE, page 25
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1996) speaking to Bernard Levin in Questioning Krishnamurti published by Thorsons, 1996.

LISTENING TO THE SILENCE, page 39
The John Francis quote was from an interview “John Francis, a ‘planetwalker’ who lived car-free and silent for 17 years, chats with Grist” at the website www.grist.org. Francis is the author of Planetwalker: How to Change Your World One Step at a Time, published by Elephant Mountain Press (March 2005).

A CHANGE OF CONSCIOUSNESS, page 41
The Franz Kafka quote is from Aphorisms (1916-1918), a collection of his writings.

PROVIDING GOD THE BLUEPRINT, page 47
The quote from Seth Godin is from his blog post Ruby Slippers (June 13, 2009) at www.sethgodin.typepad.com.