April 2008 Prosperity Thoughts

Affirmation for the month: My discernment is the key to my abundance.

Abundance is the experience that arises from the integration of two powerful structures of being. Currently, there are two best selling books that advocate using very different techniques to help us experience abundance. One is The Secret and the other is Loving What
Is.

One structure of being is proactive. In Taoist terms, it is Yang Energy. This proactive energy requires us to look at the world as feedback and analyze the results we have created. If we like our current results, then we continue doing as we have been doing. If we do not like the results we are generating, we can change our thinking and focus on what we do want/yearn for/desire, applying the Law of Attraction as explained superficially in the book The Secret.

The underlying concept is that if we are unhappy we need our outside world to change in order to increase our level of contentment. In order to be happier our proactive nature wants something different to occur and to accomplish this we need to manage our thinking. The idea
is that we are at cause and co-create our world.

The other structure of being in abundance is receptive. In Taoist terms it is Yin Energy. This receptive style also sees the world as feedback, but in a way that is very different from proactive energy. From the receptive viewpoint, when we are content it is because we
are in the flow of God s good, and we are open to allowing our good to express in our lives. When we are discontented it is because we need to change our thinking so that we can experience the gratitude that comes from being nurtured and cared for by a loving, all powerful Presence. The inquiry process in Loving What Is best describes the transition needed to be happy experiencing the world from the receptive approach.

This inquiry explained in Loving What Is confronts the initial discontent with the question Is this true? - and, of course, the initial reaction is Yes! So the inquiry process then asks again, Is
this really true? -- and our reply is inevitably an opening that infers that the perception of condition we are upset by is not actually true. Instead we notice our upset is simply caused by a
structure of knowing that is nothing more than an idea we hold on to about what ought to be true to make us happy. Then the inquiry process asks how we feel as we hold onto that thought. We always feel some set of bad feelings since we are inquiring about something that
we do not like. A more subtle inquiry would go even deeper into the yin energy and sort out precisely how it feels throughout our physical being, looking for the deep seated energy behind the mental discontent. Then we are asked to use our imagination to experience how it would feel if we were to let go of the initial upsetting thought- inevitably it feels better.

Then we are asked to turn the issue around. There are typically about three different turnarounds and we are asked to select the one that feels the most authentic and true for us.

I know this process may seem abstract without an actual example. The idea however is not to teach the Loving What Is spiritual practice; instead it is to give the reader a sense of the style of
transformation asked from our receptive structure of being. The shift asked from the receptive style of being is in our thinking, just as it is in the proactive style of being, but the change expected is in our being, rather than in the outer world. Can you see this distinction?

When we are not experiencing abundance in the world, it is important to notice which quality of our nature needs to be healed and integrated. So many teachers focus on being proactive or being accepting as the best answer. I want to urge you to consider that it is not one or the other that is need for healing;, instead, the abundance lies in the integration of the two. Sometimes we do need to take action and change our thinking with the idea that we will change our circumstances, and sometimes we need to change our thinking with the idea that our circumstances are right and perfect and all that needs adjustment is how we perceive our circumstances.

Bless You, John