THE SPIRIT OF OPULENCEBy Thomas Troward, Excerpt from “The Hidden Power”“It is quite a mistake to suppose that we must restrict and stint ourselves inorder to develop greater power or usefulness. This is to form the conception ofthe Divine Power as so limited that the best use we can make of it is by a policy ofself-starvation, whether material or mental. Of course, if we believe that someform of self-starvation is necessary to our producing good work, then so long aswe entertain this belief the fact actually is so for us.But all this exists in, and is produced by, our belief; and when we come toexamine the grounds of this belief we shall find that it rests upon an entiremisapprehension of the nature of our own power.If we clearly realize that the creative power in ourselves is unlimited, then thereis no reason for limiting the extent to which we may enjoy what we can create bymeans of it. Where we are drawing from the infinite we need never be afraid of taking morethan our share.That is not where the danger lies. The danger is in not sufficiently realizingour own richness, and in looking upon the externalized products of our creativepower as being the true riches instead of the creative power of spirit itself.If we avoid this error, there is no need to limit ourselves in taking what we willfrom the infinite storehouse: “All things are yours.” And the way to avoid thiserror is by realizing that the true wealth is in identifying ourselves with the spirit ofopulence. We must be opulent in our thought. Do not “think money,” as such, forit is only one means of opulence; but think opulence, that is, largely, generously,liberally, and you will find that the means of realizing this thought will flow to youfrom all quarters, whether as money or as a hundred other things not to be reckonedin cash.We must not make ourselves dependent on any particular form of wealth, orinsist on its coming to us through some particular channel—that is at once toimpose a limitation, and to shut out other forms of wealth and to close otherchannels; but we must enter into the spirit of it.Now the spirit is Life, and throughout the universe Life ultimately consists incirculation, whether within the physical body of the individual or on the scale ofthe entire solar system; and circulation means a continual flowing around, andthe spirit of opulence is no exception to this universal law of all life.When once this principle becomes clear to us, we shall see that our attentionshould be directed rather to the giving than the receiving.We must look upon ourselves, not as misers’ chests to be kept locked for ourown benefit, but as centres of distribution; and the better we fulfil our function assuch centres the greater will be the corresponding inflow. If we choke the outletthe current must slacken, and a full and free flow can be obtained only by keepingit open. The spirit of opulence—the opulent mode of thought, that is—consists incultivating the feeling that we possess all sorts of riches which we can bestowupon others, and which we can bestow liberally because by this very action weopen the way for still greater supplies to flow in.But you say, “I am short of money, I hardly know how to pay for necessaries.What have I to give? The answer is that we must always start from the pointwhere we are; and if your wealth at the present moment is not abundant on thematerial plane, you need not trouble to start on that plane. There are other sortsof wealth, still more valuable, on the spiritual and intellectual planes, which youcan give; and you can start from this point and practise the spirit of opulence,even though your balance at the bank may be nil. And then the universal law ofattraction will begin to assert itself. You will not only begin to experience an inflowon the spiritual and intellectual planes, but it will extend itself to the material plane also.If you have realized the spirit of opulence you cannot help drawing to yourselfmaterial good, as well as that higher wealth which is not to be measured by amoney standard; and because you truly understand the spirit of opulence you willneither affect to despise this form of good, nor will you attribute to it a value thatdoes not belong to it; but you will coordinate it with your other more interior formsof wealth so as to make it the material instrument in smoothing the way for theirmore perfect expression. Used thus, with understanding of the relation which itbears to spiritual and intellectual wealth, material wealth becomes one with them ,and is no more to be shunned and feared than it is to be sought for its own sake.It is not money, but the love of money, that is the root of evil; and the spirit ofopulence is precisely the attitude of mind which is furthest removed from the loveof money for its own sake. It does not believe in money. What it does believe inis the generous feeling which is the intuitive recognition of the great law ofcirculation, which does not in any undertaking make its first question, How mucham I going to get by it? but, How much am I going to do by it? And making this thefirst question, the getting will flow in with a generous profusion, and with aspontaneousness and rightness of direction that are absent when our first thoughtis of receiving only.We are not called upon to give what we have not yet got and to run into debt;but we are to give liberally of what we have, with the knowledge that by so doingwe are setting the law of circulation to work, and as this law brings us greater andgreater inflows of every kind of good, so our out-giving will increase, not bydepriving ourselves of any expansion of our own life that we may desire, but byfinding that every expansion makes us the more powerful instruments for expandingthe life of others. “Live and let live” is the motto of the true opulence.”How POWERFUL is that?
Ottawa International Poets and Writers for human Rights (OIPWHR)
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