The Prosperity & Wealth Bible. Kahlil Gibran
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there is somewhere in Nature’s realm a source of satisfaction for that desire. If my student, then, believes in a Personal God as the designer of all things, can he possibly conclude that God intended to mock us by desires impossible of fulfillment? If so, as Helen Wilmans aptly declares, these desires implanted within us are simply “promissory notes on a ruined bank.” Again, if these desires for wealth are not true prophecies, man is destined as he emerges from barbarism to civilization, to increasing misery and suffering, since desires multiply and intensify as man advances along the upward path of evolution. All studies, therefore, of nature and the human soul tend to convince us that man’s life should have an abundance of temporal good in short that man should rule his conditions and not be ruled by them. We go still farther and unhesitatingly assert it is.
Every Man’s Duty to Make All the Money He Can Honestly
At first sight it might seem that inheritors of great wealth having no need of more money and no love of business or labor might be excused from the task of money making. Not so, however. Every man who enjoys the advantages of our wonderful civilization, who eats the food some toiler has grown, or wears the garments some toiler has made, who enjoys the protection which is freely granted to all, owes a personal debt to the world. Despite his large bank account and broad acres he is but a refined “pauper” if in some way he does not add to the wealth of the world.
And no man has enough wealth to supply, not only his own need, but to fully meet the claims of a world in sickness, suffering and sorrow, and to plan and prosecute the great living reforms of this age.
A man should demand of himself, of society, of his God, abundance of temporal good. The stream of abundance should flow with increasing volume into his life, and the stream of beneficence should flow with equal freedom out of his heart and life, to supply the higher needs of humanity. “Freely receive; freely give.” The ideal life is the one in which a liberal kingly income is assured and man in the royalty and beneficence of his nature should give like a king.
No life can reach its maximum of enjoyment, power and usefulness without wealth.
Is There Great Danger in Acquiring Wealth?
Undoubtedly but greater dangers still in the lack of wealth. The one great danger in acquiring money and in possessing it, is the danger of becoming a slave to gold.
This is one of the vilest forms of slavery and, perhaps, no other form of idolatry is quite so benumbing to all the higher and diviner qualities of manhood as avarice. The miser is of all characters most despised and illustrates the truth of the old proverb “Money is a good servant but a hard master.” No other type of character exhibits such unreasoning folly and seems so fully to merit the rebuke: “Thou Fool.” The one safeguard in the acquisition of wealth is the constant, unremitting cultivation of the human sympathies and the exercise of benevolence. Without this, the acquisition of money is generally attended by a freezing up of the moral nature and a growing love for money for purely selfish purposes, or for money’s sake, ending in avarice and the wretched condition of the miser. It is quite easy to see how the rigid economy many feel called upon to exercise in rising from poverty to wealth, and the constant mental habit of reaching out in desire and act for material gain, would in the lapse of years work a transformation of character, so that men who set out in life with an ambition to acquire a fortune for the uplift of humanity, find with the gaining of the fortune they have lost all benevolent desire. This is an unspeakable calamity to multitudes of men who become enslaved not by money, but by the love of money, and miss the grandest opportunity of a life dowered with the possession of money the privilege of using wealth to enrich themselves and their fellows with that increasing knowledge, happiness and virtue, that constitute the eternal riches of the soul.
Better a thousandfold for a man that he live and die under the disadvantages and limitations and hardships of poverty and retain the spirit of brotherhood and humanity in his heart, than to acquire the wealth of Croesus and shrink his soul up to the littleness, meanness and wretchedness of a miser.
A very good test of our own soul attitude toward money, a very fair indication of how we would use great wealth if it came to us, may be had in the serious answer of the question: How are we using the measure of wealth which is ours today? How much have we contributed to purely benevolent objects this past year?
A man should ever recognize his own kingship and demand a liberal income from the world, and it is his business to see to it that all obstacles in himself and his environment are removed which would hinder a generous flow of Nature’s great stream of Opulence toward himself. And then he should live like a king, and be as generous as a king, with his fellowmen.
We Seek to Intensify Your Desires for Wealth
In place of encouraging contentment with Poverty, we preach the Gospel of Discontent. We would whet your desires for wealth and intensify your love not of money but of the good things in life which money represents. It is a misinterpretation of life and of all true religion to deny either the vast advantages of money on the one hand, or the right and duty of all men to possess and use it in as large a degree as is consistent with honor and justice. The inherent desires of men, the demands of the world today upon us in our complex civilization, the Law of Opulence everywhere seen in Nature, all prove that men ought to conquer conditions and amass wealth.
Lesson 1 — The Making Over of One’s Self
Our first lesson is introductory, desiring to give the student the right viewpoint of the subject, to enable him to see clearly the relation between character and achievements in life, and to clear the ground for the practical rules and instructions to follow:
Our first rule then, and one of the most important of all, is this:
MAKE YOURSELF OVER
The student of these lessons will very probably interpose this objection: We expected to get practical instructions in money-making and our teacher is giving us theoretical instruction in the building of character.
And for the very good reason that moneymaking, money-keeping and right moneyusing depend on character. Nothing more directly bearing on material interests could be given a student than the up-building of a strong, progressive, courageous and determined character. All real success in life in all departments of human endeavor depends on that. Men conquer material conditions by first conquering themselves. Men become rich in worldly goods by becoming rich in intellectual power, in faith, hope, courage, and in the creative powers of the mind. The outward life is a reflex of the inward life and no man can become master of the outward and physical realms who does not master the kingdom within. No one is prepared to make wealth, conserve wealth, or rightly use wealth, who is in mental poverty, moral weakness or of a cowardly spirit.
The Great Master of Nazareth knew the order in which happiness, harmony, health and riches in fact all outward good come into the life, and expressed it when he said: “Seek first the Kingdom that is within and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Multitudes of men want results in their lives without the trouble on their part of furnishing the efficient cause. But results do not come from mere wishing. Harvests do not come without the sweat and toil of the laborer and the sowing of the seed.
All the greatest blessings of life and all our mightiest achievements result from right thinking, right feeling and right willing.
Until a man gets the right conception of the meaning of life, of the unlimited powers of the human soul, until his nature is burning with desire to do and dare and win, until his Will is developed by exercise and he has acquired Courage and indomitable Perseverance, he is poorly equipped for either attaining or rightly using money. It is well worth the student’s attention, therefore, to study the relation between strong character and great achievements.
Most people have to do considerable judicious weeding in the garden of their minds getting rid of many inherited and traditional ideas and notions of earlier times freeing the mentality from Fear, Worry, Doubt, and planting therein the seeds of Faith in themselves, in Nature, in the Law of Opulence, Faith in their own Rights, and developing Courage, Hope, Ambition