Sept 2008- Part II

Prosperity Thoughts September 2008- Part Two

Affirmation: I live with an Open Heart. I trust that Spirit alone knows what my ever shifting needs are in this moment. I recall that Spirit resides within me as I relax into the firm conviction that my deepest needs are being co-creatively manifested in Divine Order.

In Part One of our September prosperity thoughts, we drew our focus to the paradox of time as it relates to getting our needs met. We noted that we often tend to evaluate whether our needs are being met in the present moment, and react from that short term perspective. If our perception is that our current needs are met, then we are at peace. On the other hand, if our perception is that we lack something, then we tend to feel frustrated and impatient. The relevant spiritual practice calls us to remember that we are, after all, eternal souls. Hence, the time horizon of our higher order of needs getting met might extend through this moment into eternity. Thus we can relax and let go of our strident impatience and frustration with God for not being responsive to our needs according to how we define them.

The second paradox in teaching applied spirituality as it relates to prosperity is that our definition of abundance is always shifting. I recently got a call from someone who urgently needed counsel on a job situation that felt to them as if it was almost intolerable. Never mind that they were earning a six figure income in the field that they had chosen. Forget about the fact that their family life was blessed by a precious baby and a happy marriage. Ignore that they enjoyed great health, had recently lost excess weight and were clean and sober in all areas of their life. They called because they thought they needed relief now. They believed that Spirit was not attending to their needs carefully enough.

Why? Because they were living at a Chakra level that required them to lead, to express their power and to make a difference to people and they were feeling stuck. As it happened, they left a message while I was away for a few days, and by the time I called them back, the entire situation had changed. They had just been offered a great promotion which would more than meet all their needs for creative input and team leadership. I suspect it also met their needs for recognition and acknowledgment as well.

The point is, that nothing changed in terms of their abundance from last week to this week. The issue was that their consciousness asserted that they needed to make a difference now, and in the face of any time lag, they were frustrated, afraid, upset and so forth.

Even in the face of their frustration, The Universe was moving towards actualizing this set of needs in a perfect and healthy manner. Six months prior, this friend could not even have imagined the opening in their career that occurred within the past few days. Yet, this opening had already occurred in the Mind of God. Consequently, people, places and situations were already moving into alignment to meet the my friend's leadership needs even before my friend articulated the need aloud for the first time.The problem was not in God's lack of response, it is never about God's lack of response. The difficulty was in my friend's lack of spiritual perspective. (My friend-- being aware of this-- I would hope, is why I was called for counsel).

My friend thought that their needs had changed over the past few months, and of course, their needs had changed. Needs are always changing. As we discussed a few weeks ago, as situations alter, we move up and down the Chakras, our actual moment by moment needs change and our perception of our needs change as well. Their need for health, safety, relationship, security and so forth were all presently well met, and so their higher level needs were activated- they needed to make a difference through their leadership and creativity.

The Universe is always responding to our needs. But when we shift back and forth from living in the Truth That "God is Good and All the Time" and living in our ego that demands that our needs be met according to our will --we get pathetic results. My friend had temporarily lost sight of the "God is good" motif and had fallen into the mindset that he/she was in charge.

When we 1) surrender our understanding of what our needs are, and 2) when we let go of our expectations of when the needs ought to be met, and 3) when we release our attachment to the strategy that we think will get our needs met, then we are living with an Open Heart.

Open Hearted living is the optimum spiritual practice to feel the nurturing power of The Universe working in our lives.

Living with an Open Heart cuts through the pain from the paradox of manifesting our good. This paradox suggests that we can co create a life of abundance so long as we surrender all of our attachments to what abundance looks like.

Our Affirmation for this week: I live with an Open Heart. I trust that Spirit alone knows what my ever shifting needs are in this moment. I recall that Spirit resides within me as I relax into the firm conviction that my deepest needs are being co-creatively manifested in Divine Order.